Oscarwinner nudity
Academy Award winning actresses who went nude in films, in reverse chronological order. Is nudity bad or good for your Oscar chances? Of the 76 actresses that won the Oscar, 46 (60%) did nudity in one or more films. But of the last 28 Oscarwinners, áll of them appeared nude. So, nudity seems a prerequisite for an Oscar? Probably it's just a sign of the times. Of the first 24, just óne did, Claudette Colbert. Six won the Oscar befóre appearing nude, 38 won the Oscar after. Nicole Kidman is nude in 19 films, followed by Marion Cotillard with 17 and Helen Mirren and Charlize Theron with 16. Youngest is Sopia Loren at 16, oldest is Jessica Tandy at 85.
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Jessica Michelle Chastain was born in Sacramento, California, and was raised in a middle-class household in a Northern California suburb. Her mother, Jerri Chastain, is a vegan chef whose family is originally from Kansas, and her stepfather is a fireman. She discovered dance at the age of nine and was in a dance troupe by age thirteen. She began performing in Shakespearean productions all over the Bay area.
An actor in a production of "Romeo & Juliet" encouraged her to audition for Juilliard as a drama major. She became a member of "Crew 32" with the help of a scholarship from one of the school's famous alumni, Robin Williams.
In her last year at Juilliard, she was offered a holding deal with TV writer/producer John Wells and she eventually worked in three of his TV shows. Jessica continues to do theatre, having played in "The Cherry Orchard", "Rodney's Wife", "Salome" and "Othello". She spends her time between New York and Los Angeles, working in theater, film and TV.
In 2011, she had a prolific year in film. She was nominated for and won a number of awards, including a 2012 Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for The Help (2011).Was nude in 6 times - The zookeeper's wife (2017), Salomé (2013), Lawless (2012), George & Tammy (2022), Scenes from a marriage (2021) ), first at age 30 for "Jolene (2008)".
Won Oscar áfter, in 2022- Actress
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Renée Kathleen Zellweger was born on April 25, 1969, in Katy, Texas, Her mother, Kjellfrid Irene (Andreassen), is a Norwegian-born former nurse and midwife, of Norwegian, Kven (Finnish), and Swedish descent. Her father, Emil Erich Zellweger, is a Swiss-born engineer. The two married in 1963. Renée has a brother named Drew Zellweger, a marketing executive born on February 15, 1967. Renée got interested in acting in high school while working on the drama club. She also took an acting class at the University of Texas (Austin), where she began looking towards acting as a career. After graduation, she wanted to continue acting, but Hollywood is a tough town to break into, so Renée decided to stay in Texas, and auditioned for roles around Houston, where she managed to grab roles in such films as Reality Bites (1994) and Empire Records (1995).
While on the set for the sequel, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994), she befriended Matthew McConaughey, another Hollywood up-and-comer. He was working on a project at the time that Renée was interested in, auditioned for, and won the role in the film Love and a .45 (1994), which earned her enough critical praise that she decided to move to Los Angeles. Another role in The Whole Wide World (1996) followed which led to her big break. Cameron Crowe was busy casting his next film, Jerry Maguire (1996),starring Tom Cruise. Crowe was considering such actresses as Cameron Diaz, Bridget Fonda, Winona Ryder, and Marisa Tomei, when he heard of Zellweger's performance in The Whole Wide World (1996). He auditioned Zellweger and was sure he'd found his Dorothy Boyd.
Renée followed her huge success with a few small independent films and after receiving further critical praise, she felt confident enough to reenter the world of big-budget Hollywood films. She starred opposite Meryl Streep in the tear-jerker One True Thing (1998). She also took a role in Me, Myself & Irene (2000), opposite Jim Carrey, and soon after began dating Carrey. The two denied their relationship at first, but finally gave in and admitted it; today they are no longer together. Also in 2000, she starred in the title role in Nurse Betty (2000), where she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical. In 2001, she received even more critical and commercial success in the title role in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). She received her first Academy Award nomination for her role, which was followed by her second Oscar-nominated role in the musical Chicago (2002). She then again wowed audiences with her fierce yet warm portrayal of Ruby Thewes in the film adaptation of Cold Mountain (2003), which won Zellweger an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, which was her first Academy Award. She won her second, for Best Actress, 16 years later, playing Judy Garland in Judy (2019).Was nude in 2 movies, first at age 32 for Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) as Bridget Jones. Won Oscar áfter, in 2019/20- Actress
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Olivia Colman was born on 30 January 1974 in Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for The Favourite (2018), Tyrannosaur (2011) and The Lost Daughter (2021). She has been married to Ed Sinclair since August 2001. They have three children.Was nude in movie, at age 32 for ''Confetti (2006)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 2018/19- Actress
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Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She earned a BA in theater from Bethany College in 1979 and an MFA from Yale University in 1982. Her career after graduation began onstage, and she has retained her association with the theater throughout her career. She soon obtained prominent roles in movies as well, first starring in Blood Simple (1984), in which she worked with filmmaker Joel Coen, whom she married that year. She frequently collaborated with Coen and his brother, Ethan Coen, in their films.
McDormand's skilled and versatile acting has been recognized by both the critics and the Academy, and in addition to many critics' awards, she has been nominated for an Academy Award six times - Supporting in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), and Lead in Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020), winning the Oscar for the latter three. She also won a Best Picture Oscar as co-producer of "Nomadland." Keenly intelligent and possessed of a sharp wit, McDormand is the antithesis of the Hollywood starlet - rather than making every role about Frances McDormand, she dissolves into the characters she plays. Accordingly, she has expressed some reservations about the iconic recognition she has gained from her touching and amusing portrayal of Police Chief Marge Gunderson, the quintessential Minnesota Scandinavian, in Fargo (1996).
McDormand and Coen adopted a son, Pedro McDormand Coen, who was born in Paraguay, in 1994. They live in New York.Was nude in 3 movies, first at age 36 for ''Short Cuts (1993)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 1996, 2017 & 2021- Actress
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Emily Jean "Emma" Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to Krista Jean Stone (née Yeager), a homemaker & Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Stone, a contracting company founder and CEO. She is of Swedish, German & British Isles descent. Stone began acting as a child as a member of the Valley Youth Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, where she made her stage debut in a production of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows". She appeared in many more productions through her early teens until, at the age of fifteen, she decided that she wanted to make acting her career.
The official story is that she made a PowerPoint presentation, backed by Madonna's "Hollywood" and itself entitled "Project Hollywood", in an attempt to persuade her parents to allow her to drop out of school and move to Los Angeles. The pitch was successful and she and her mother moved to LA with her schooling completed at home while she spent her days auditioning.
She had her TV breakthrough when she won the part of Laurie Partridge in the VH1 talent/reality show In Search of the Partridge Family (2004) which led to a number of small TV roles in the following years. Her movie debut was as Jules in Superbad (2007) and, after a string of successful performances, her leading role as Olive in Easy A (2010) established her as a star.Was nude in 1 movie, at age 29 for ''The Favourite (2018)''. One of only six who fírst won the Oscar, in 2016- Actress
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Brie Larson has built an impressive career as an acclaimed television actress, rising feature film star and emerging recording artist. A native of Sacramento, Brie started studying drama at the early age of 6, as the youngest student ever to attend the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. She starred in one of Disney Channel's most watched original movies, Right on Track (2003), as well as the WB's Raising Dad (2001) and MGM's teen comedy Sleepover (2004) - all before graduating from middle school.
Brie's work includes the coming-of-age drama Tanner Hall (2009) and the dark comedy, Just Peck (2009), with Marcia Cross and Keir Gilchrist. She earned critical praise for her role in the independent feature, Remember the Daze (2007) (aka "The Beautiful Ordinary"), singled out by Variety as the "scene stealer" of the film, opposite Amber Heard and Leighton Meester.
Brie garnered considerable acclaim for her series regular role of "Kate", Toni Collette's sarcastic and rebellious daughter, in Showtime's breakout drama United States of Tara (2009), created by Academy Award-winning writer Diablo Cody and based on an original idea by Steven Spielberg.
She starred in The Trouble with Bliss (2011) opposite Michael C. Hall, playing a young girl out to seduce him while, in turn, teaching him more about his own life. She also starred in Universal's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) and Noah Baumbach's Greenberg (2010). In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Brie played rock star "Envy Adams", former flame of Michael Cera, and in Greenberg (2010), she starred as a young temptress trying to flirt with Ben Stiller, a New Yorker traveling West to try to figure out his life.
In addition to her talents as an actress, Brie has simultaneously nurtured an ever-growing musical career. At 13, Brie landed her first record deal at Universal Records with Tommy Mottola, who signed her sight-unseen. Her first release in 2005 led to a nationwide tour.Was nude in 1 movie, at age 19 for ''Tanner Hall (2009)''...it's like, three whole frames at best. Won Oscar áfter, in 2015- Actress
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Julianne Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on December 3, 1960, the daughter of Anne (Love), a social worker, and Peter Moore Smith, a paratrooper, colonel, and later military judge. Her mother moved to the U.S. in 1951, from Greenock, Scotland. Her father, from Burlington, New Jersey, has German, Irish, Welsh, German-Jewish, and English ancestry.
Moore spent the early years of her life in over two dozen locations around the world with her parents, during her father's military career. She finally found her place at Boston University, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degree in acting from the School of the Performing Arts. After graduation (in 1983), She took the stage name "Julianne Moore" because there was another actress named "Julie Anne Smith". Julianne moved to New York and worked extensively in theater, including appearances off-Broadway in two Caryl Churchill plays, Serious Money and Ice Cream With Hot Fudge and as Ophelia in Hamlet at The Guthrie Theatre. But despite her formal training, Julianne fell into the attractive actress' trap of the mid-1980's: TV soaps and miniseries. She appeared briefly in the daytime serial The Edge of Night (1956) and from 1985 to 1988 she played two half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina on the soap As the World Turns (1956). This performance later led to an Outstanding Ingénue Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. Her subsequent appearances were in mostly forgettable TV-movies, such as Money, Power, Murder. (1989), The Last to Go (1991) and Cast a Deadly Spell (1991).
She made her entrance into the big screen with 1990's Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), where she played the victim of a mummy. Two years later, Julianne appeared in feature films with supporting parts in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and the comedy The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992). She kept winning better and more powerful roles as time went on, including a small but memorable role as a doctor who spots Kimble Harrison Ford and attempts to thwart his escape in The Fugitive (1993). (A role that made such an impression on Steven Spielberg that he cast her in the Jurassic Park (1993) sequel without an audition in 1997). In one of Moore's most distinguished performances, she recapitulated her "beguiling Yelena" from Andre Gregory's workshop version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Louis Malle's critically acclaimed Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Director Todd Haynes gave Julianne her first opportunity to take on a lead role in Safe (1995). Her portrayal of Carol White, an affluent L.A. housewife who develops an inexplicable allergic reaction to her environment, won critical praise as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
Later that year she found her way into romantic comedy, co-starring as Hugh Grant's pregnant girlfriend in Nine Months (1995). Following films included Assassins (1995), where she played an electronics security expert targeted for death (next to Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas) and Surviving Picasso (1996), where she played Dora Maar, one of the numerous lovers of Picasso (portrayed by her hero, Anthony Hopkins). A year later, after co-starring in Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), opposite Jeff Goldblum, a young and unknown director, Paul Thomas Anderson asked Julianne to appear in his movie, Boogie Nights (1997). Despite her misgivings, she finally was won over by the script and her decision to play the role of Amber Waves, a loving porn star who acts as a mother figure to a ragtag crew, proved to be a wise one, since she received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Julianne started 1998 by playing an erotic artist in The Big Lebowski (1998), continued with a small role in the social comedy Chicago Cab (1997) and ended with a subtle performance in Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (1960). 1999 had Moore as busy as an actress can be.
As the century closed, Julianne starred in a number of high-profile projects, beginning with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune (1999) , in which she was cast as the mentally challenged but adorable sister of a decidedly unhinged Glenn Close. A portrayal of the scheming Mrs. Cheveley followed in Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband (1999) with a number of critics asserting that Moore was the best part of the movie. She then enjoyed another collaboration with director Anderson in Magnolia (1999) and continued with an outstanding performance in The End of the Affair (1999), for which she garnered another Oscar nomination. She ended 1999 with another great performance, that of a grieving mother in A Map of the World (1999), opposite Sigourney Weaver.Was nude in 10 movies, first at age 32 for ''Short Cuts (1993)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 2014.- Actress
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Cate Blanchett was born on May 14, 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to June (Gamble), an Australian teacher and property developer, and Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., an American advertising executive, originally from Texas. She has an older brother and a younger sister. When she was ten years old, her 40-year-old father died of a sudden heart attack. Her mother never remarried, and her grandmother moved in to help her mother.
Cate graduated from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992 and, in a little over a year, had won both critical and popular acclaim. On graduating from NIDA, she joined the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Caryl Churchill's "Top Girls", then played Felice Bauer, the bride, in Tim Daly's "Kafka Dances", winning the 1993 Newcomer Award from the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle for her performance. From there, Blanchett moved to the role of Carol in David Mamet's searing polemic "Oleanna", also for the Sydney Theatre Company, and won the Rosemont Best Actress Award, her second award that year. She then co-starred in the ABC Television's prime time drama Heartland (1994), again winning critical acclaim. In 1995, she was nominated for Best Female Performance for her role as Ophelia in the Belvoir Street Theatre Company's production of "Hamlet". Other theatre credits include Helen in the Sydney Theatre Company's "Sweet Phoebe", Miranda in "The Tempest" and Rose in "The Blind Giant is Dancing", both for the Belvoir Street Theatre Company. In other television roles, Blanchett starred as Bianca in ABC's Bordertown (1995), as Janie Morris in G.P. (1989) and in ABC's popular series Police Rescue (1994). She made her feature film debut in Paradise Road (1997).
Cate married writer Andrew Upton in 1997. She had met him a year earlier on a movie set, and they didn't like each other at first. He thought she was aloof, and she thought he was arrogant, but then they connected over a poker game at a party, and she went home with him that night. Three weeks later he proposed marriage and they quickly married before she went off to England to play her breakthrough role in films: the title character in Elizabeth (1998) for which she won numerous awards for her performance, including the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama. Cate was also nominated for an Academy Award for the role but lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow. 2001 was a particularly busy year, with starring roles in Bandits (2001), The Shipping News (2001), Charlotte Gray (2001) and playing Elf Queen Galadriel in the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy. She also gave birth to her first child, son Dashiell, in 2001. In 2004, she gave birth to her second son Roman.
Also, in 2004, she played actress Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator (2004), for which she received an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. Two years later, she received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for playing a teacher having an affair with an underage student in Notes on a Scandal (2006). In 2007, she returned to the role that made her a star in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). It earned her an Oscar nomination as Best Actress. She was nominated for another Oscar that same year as Best Supporting Actress for playing Bob Dylan in I'm Not There (2007). In 2008, she gave birth to her third child, son Ignatius. She and her husband became artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company, choosing to spend more time in Australia raising their three sons. She also purchased a multi-million dollar home in Sydney, Australia and named it Bulwarra and made extensive renovations to it. Because of her life in Australia, her film work became sporadic, until Woody Allen cast her in the title role in Blue Jasmine (2013), which won her the Academy Award as Best Actress. She ended her job as artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, while her husband continued there for two more years before he too resigned.
In 2015, she adopted her daughter Edith in her father's homeland of the United States. That same year, she and her husband sold their multi-million dollar home in Australia at a profit and moved to America. Reasons varied from her wanting to work more in America to wanting to familiarize herself with her late father's American heritage. She played the title role of Carol (2015), a 1950s American housewife in a lesbian affair with a younger woman, for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress. While most actresses might slow down in their forties, Blanchett did the opposite by stretching her boundaries even further, such as when she played 13 different characters in Manifesto (2015) and then making her Broadway debut in 2017 in "The Present", which is her husband's adaptation of Chekhov's play "Platonov" for which she earned a Tony nomination as Best Actress in a Play. Also in 2017, she was selected for the highest honor in her birth country: the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).Did 6 nude movies, first at age 20 for ''Bordertown (1989)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 2013.- Actress
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As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwide, Jennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation. She is also the first person born in the 1990s to have won an acting Oscar.
Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born August 15, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Karen (Koch), who manages a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who works in construction. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine, and has English, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Her career began when she traveled to Manhattan at the age of fourteen after dropping out of the 8th grade. After conducting her first cold read, agents told her mother that "it was the best cold read by a 14-year-old they had ever heard," and tried to convince her stage mother that she needed to spend the summer in Manhattan. After leaving the agency, Jennifer was spotted by an agent in the midst of shooting an H&M ad and asked to take her picture. The next day, that agent followed up with her and invited her to the studio for a cold-read audition. Again, the agents were highly impressed and strongly urged her mother to allow her to spend the summer in New York City. As fate would have it, she did and subsequently appeared in commercials such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" and played a role in the movie The Devil You Know (2013).
Shortly thereafter, her career forced her and her family to move to Los Angeles, where she was cast in the TBS sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007), and in smaller movies such as The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2008).
Her big break came when she played Ree in Winter's Bone (2010), which landed her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Shortly thereafter, she secured the role of Mystique in franchise reboot X-Men: First Class (2011), which went on to be a hit in Summer 2011. Around this time, Lawrence scored the role of a lifetime when she was cast as Katniss Everdeen in the big-screen adaptation of literary sensation The Hunger Games (2012). The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies ever, with over $407 million at the US box office, and instantly propelled Lawrence to the A-list among young actors and actresses. Three Hunger Games sequels were released in each consecutive November: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), with Lawrence reprising her role.
In 2012, the romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook (2012) earned her the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress, among other accolades, making her the youngest person ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and the second-youngest Best Actress winner.
She starred in David O. Russell's popular drama-comedy American Hustle (2013), as Roselyn Rosenfield, and teamed with the director again to play inventor Joy Mangano in another family comedy, Joy (2015), for which she earned Oscar nominations for both roles (Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively).Did 3 nude movies, first at age 25 for ''Passengers (2016)''. One of only six who fírst won the Oscar, in 2012.- Actress
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Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. Her father was of German and Swiss-German descent, and her mother had English, Irish, and German ancestry.
Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera. She became interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was nominated for her first Oscar for her role in The Deer Hunter (1978). She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982), in which she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly acclaimed performances over the next decade in great films like Silkwood (1983); Out of Africa (1985); Ironweed (1987); and A Cry in the Dark (1988). Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood's married lover in The Bridges of Madison County (1995) and as the prodigal daughter in Marvin's Room (1996). In 1998 she made her first venture into the area of producing, and was the executive producer for the moving ...First Do No Harm (1997). A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked that "...no matter what happens, my work will stand..."Did 3 nude movies. First at age 33 for ''Still of the Night (1982)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 2011.- Actress
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Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).
Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. Her parents are both of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Natalie's family left Israel for Washington, D.C., when she was still very young. After a few more moves, her family finally settled in New York, where she still lives to this day. She graduated with honors, and her academic achievements allowed her to attend Harvard University. She was discovered by an agent in a pizza parlor at the age of 11. She was pushed towards a career in modeling but she decided that she would rather pursue a career in acting. She was featured in many live performances, but she made her powerful film debut in the movie Léon: The Professional (1994) (aka "Léon"). Following this role Natalie won roles in such films as Heat (1995), Beautiful Girls (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996).
It was not until 1999 that Natalie received worldwide fame as Queen Amidala in the highly anticipated US$431 million-grossing prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). She then she starred in two critically acclaimed comedy dramas, Anywhere But Here (1999) and Where the Heart Is (2000), followed by Closer (2004), for which she received an Oscar nomination. She reprised her role as Padme Amidala in the last two episodes of the Star Wars prequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). She received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Black Swan (2010).
She received a second nomination for Best Actress, for playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016).Did 6 nude movies, First at age 23 for ''Closer (2004)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 2010- Producer
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Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road with her parents and younger sister, chef Gesine Bullock-Prado, and spent much of her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany. She often performed in the children's chorus of whatever production her mother was in. That singing talent later came in handy for her role as an aspiring country singer in The Thing Called Love (1993). Her family moved back to the Washington area when she was adolescent. She later enrolled in East Carolina University in North Carolina, where she studied acting. Shortly afterward she moved to New York to pursue a career on the stage. This led to acting in television programs and then feature films. She gave memorable performances in Demolition Man (1993) and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), but did not achieve the stardom that seemed inevitable for her until her work in the smash hit Speed (1994). She now ranks as one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood. For her role in The Blind Side (2009) she won the Oscar, and her blockbusters The Proposal (2009), The Heat (2013) and Gravity (2013) made her a bankable star. With $56,000,000, she was listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress in the world.Did 3 nude movies, first at age 25 for ''Who Shot Patakango? (1990)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 2009- Actress
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Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut from Shakespearean tragedy to modern-day mysticism and erotica.
Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, into a family of thespians -- parents Roger Winslet and Sally Anne Bridges-Winslet were both stage actors, maternal grandparents Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the Reading Repertory Theatre, and uncle Robert Bridges was a fixture in London's West End theatre district. Kate came into her talent at an early age. She scored her first professional gig at eleven, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a commercial for a kids' cereal. She started acting lessons around the same time, which led to formal training at a performing arts high school. Over the next few years, she appeared on stage regularly and landed a few bit parts in sitcoms. Her first big break came at age 17, when she was cast as an obsessive adolescent in Heavenly Creatures (1994). The film, based on the true story of two fantasy-gripped girls who commit a brutal murder, received modest distribution but was roundly praised by critics.
Still a relative unknown, Winslet attended a cattle call audition the next year for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). She made an immediate impression on the film's star, Emma Thompson, and beat out more than a hundred other hopefuls for the part of plucky Marianne Dashwood. Her efforts were rewarded with both a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Winslet followed up with two more period pieces, playing the rebellious heroine in Jude (1996) and Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).
The role that transformed Winslet from art house attraction to international star was Rose DeWitt Bukater, the passionate, rosy-cheeked aristocrat in James Cameron's Titanic (1997). Young girls the world over both idolized and identified with Winslet, swooning over all that face time opposite heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and noting her refreshingly healthy, unemaciated physique. Winslet's performance also garnered a Best Actress nomination, making her the youngest actress to ever receive two Academy Award nominations.
After the swell of unexpected attention surrounding Titanic (1997), Winslet was eager to retreat into independent projects. Rumor has it that she turned down the lead roles in both Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in order to play adventurous soul searchers in Hideous Kinky (1998) and Holy Smoke (1999). The former cast her as a young single mother traveling through 1970s Morocco with her daughters in tow; the latter, as a zealous follower of a guru tricked into a "deprogramming" session in the Australian outback. The next year found her back in period dress as the Marquis de Sade's chambermaid and accomplice in Quills (2000). Kate holds the distinction of being the youngest actor ever honored with four Academy Award nominations (she received her fourth at age 29). As of 2016, she has been nominated for an Oscar seven times, winning one of them: she received the Best Actress Oscar for the drama The Reader (2008), playing a former concentration camp guard.
For her performance of Joanna Hoffman in Steve Jobs (2015), she received her seventh Academy Award nomination.
Off camera, Winslet is known for her mischievous pranks and familial devotion. She has two sisters, Anna Winslet and Beth Winslet (both actresses), and a brother, Joss.
In 1998, she married assistant director Jim Threapleton. They had a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, in October 2000. They divorced in 2001. She later married director Sam Mendes in 2003 and gave birth to their son, Joe Alfie Winslet-Mendes, later that year. After seven years of marriage, in February 2010 they announced that they had amicably separated, and divorced in October 2010. In 2012, Kate married Ned Rocknroll, with whom she has a son. She was awarded Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama.Was nude in 13 movies, first at age 17, 5 months old for ''Heavenly Creatures (1994)". Won Oscar áfter, in 2008 (Melanie Lynskey was 15 years and 10 months old.)- Actress
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Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard was born on September 30, 1975 in Paris. Cotillard is the daughter of Jean-Claude Cotillard, an actor, playwright and director, and Niseema Theillaud, an actress and drama teacher. Her father's family is from Brittany.
Raised in Orléans, France, she made her acting debut as a child with a role in one of her father's plays. She studied drama at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique in Orléans. After small appearances and performances in theater, Cotillard had occasional and minor roles in TV series such as Highlander (1992) and Extrême limite (1994), but her career as a film actress began in the mid-1990s. While still a teenager, Cotillard made her cinema debut at the age of 18 in the film L'histoire du garçon qui voulait qu'on l'embrasse (1994), and had small but noticeable roles in films such as Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument (1996) and Coline Serreau's comedy The Green Planet (1996).
In 1996, she had her first lead role in the TV film Chloé (1996), playing the title role - a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution. Cotillard co-starred opposite Anna Karina, the muse of the Nouvelle Vague.
In 1997, she won her first film award at the Festival Rencontres Cinématographiques d'Istres in France, for her performance as the young imprisoned Nathalie in the short film Affaire classée (1997). Her first prominent screen role was Lilly Bertineau in Gérard Pirès's box-office hit Taxi (1998), a role which she reprised in two sequels: Taxi 2 (2000) and Taxi 3 (2003), this role earned her first César award nomination (France's equivalent to the Oscar) for Most Promising Actress in 1999.
In 1999, Cotillard starred as Julie Bonzon in the Swiss war drama War in the Highlands (1998). For her performance in the film, she won the Best Actress award at the Autrans Film Festival in France. In 2001, Marion starred in Pretty Things (2001) as the twin sisters Marie and Lucie, and was nominated for her second César award for Most Promising Actress.
Cotillard's breakthrough in France came in 2003, when she starred in Yann Samuell's dark romantic comedy Love Me If You Dare (2003), in which she played Sophie Kowalsky, the daughter of Polish immigrants who lives a love-hate relationship with her childhood friend. The film was a box-office hit in France, became a cult film abroad and led Cotillard to bigger projects.
Her first Hollywood movie was Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003), in which she played Joséphine, the wife of William Bloom (played by Billy Crudup). A few years later, Marion starred in Ridley Scott's A Good Year (2006) playing Fanny Chenal, a French café owner who falls in love with Russell Crowe's character. In 2004, she won the Chopard Thophy of Female Revelation at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, Cotillard won the César award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance of Tina Lombardi in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (2004).
In 2007, Cotillard received international recognition for her iconic portrayal of Édith Piaf in La Vie En Rose (2007). Director Olivier Dahan cast Cotillard to play the legendary French singer because to him, her eyes were like those of "Piaf". The fact that she can sing also helped Cotillard land the role of "Piaf", although most of the singing in the film is that of Piaf's. The role won Cotillard the Academy Award for Best Actress along with a César, a Lumière Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe. That made her only the second actress to win an acting Oscar performing in a language other than English next to Sophia Loren (Two Women (1960)). Only two male performers (Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful (1997) and Robert De Niro for The Godfather Part II (1974)) have won an Oscar for solely non-English parts. Trevor Nunn called her portrayal of "Piaf" "one of the greatest performances on film ever". At the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film premiered, Cotillard was given a 15-minute standing ovation. When she won the César, Alain Delon presented the award and announced the winner as "La Môme Marion" (The Kid Marion), he also praised her at the stage saying: "Marion, I give you this César. I think this César is for a great great actress, and I know what I'm talking about".
Cotillard has worked much more frequently in English-language movies following her Academy Award recognition. In 2009, she acted opposite Johnny Depp in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009), and later that year played Luisa Contini in Rob Marshall's musical Nine (2009) and received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Time magazine ranked her as the fifth best performance by a female in 2009. The following year, she took on the main antagonist role, Mal, in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), and in 2011 she had memorable parts in Midnight in Paris (2011) and Contagion (2011) and reteamed with Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
In 2011 and 2012 respectively, Cotillard appeared on the top of Le Figaro's list of the highest paid actors in France, it was the first time in nine years that a female topped the list. Cotillard was also the highest paid foreign actress in Hollywood.
In 2012, Cotillard received wide-spread critical acclaim for her role as the legless orca trainer Stéphanie in Rust and Bone (2012). The film was a box office hit in France and received a ten-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. Cotillard won the Globe de Cristal (France's equivalent to the Golden Globe), the Étoile d'Or award and was nominated for the Golden Globes, SAG, BAFTA, Critics' Choice and César Awards for her performance in the film. Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety praising Cotillard's performance in "Rust and Bone", the two actresses competed for the Academy Awards for Best Actress in 2008, Cate was nominated for her performance in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Marion for her performance in La Vie En Rose (2007) and Cotillard won the Oscar.
She had her first leading role in an American movie in 2013, in James Gray's The Immigrant (2013), in which she played Ewa Cybulska, a Polish immigrant who wants to experience the American dream. Cotillard received wide-spread acclaim for her performance in the film at the 66th Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered, and also won several critics awards. In 2014, Cotillard played Sandra in the Belgian film Two Days, One Night (2014) by the Dardenne brothers. Her performance was unanimously praised at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, earned several critics awards, Cotillard won her first European Award for Best Actress and also received her second Oscar nomination and her sixth César award nomination.
In 2015, she played Lady Macbeth opposite Michael Fassbender in Justin Kurzel's Macbeth (2015) and voiced two animated movies: The Little Prince (2015) in which she voiced The Rose, and April and the Extraordinary World (2015), in which she voiced the lead role, Avril. Her 2016 included Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon (2016), Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World (2016), Justin Kurzel's Assassin's Creed (2016), in which she worked again with her Macbeth co-star Michael Fassbender; and Robert Zemeckis's Allied (2016), with Brad Pitt.Did 17 nude movies, first at age 18 for ''L'Histoire du garçon qui voulait qu'on l'embrasse (1993)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 2007- Actress
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Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many productions including in the West End and Broadway.Did 16 nude movies, first at age 23 for ''Age of Consent (1969)''. Her infamous movie Caligula was unbeknownst to her, turned into a gore-sexploitation movie. She won Oscar áfter, in 2006- Producer
- Actress
- Executive
Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon was born on March 22, 1976 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Betty Witherspoon, a registered nurse & John Draper Witherspoon, a military surgeon. Reese spent the first 4 years of her life in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, where her father served as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army reserves. Shortly after, the family moved back to the USA & settled in Nashville, Tennessee.
Reese was introduced to the entertainment industry at a very early age. At age 7, she began modeling. This led to appearances on several local television commercials. At age 11, she placed first in a Ten-State Talent Fair.
In 1990, she landed her first major acting role in Robert Mulligan's The Man in the Moon (1991). Her role as a 14-year old tomboy earned her rave reviews. Roles in bigger films such as Jack the Bear (1993) and A Far Off Place (1993) followed shortly after.
Following high school graduation in 1994 from Harpeth Hall, a Nashville all girls school, Reese decided to put her acting career on hold and attend Stanford University where she would major in English literature. However, her collegiate plans were shortly dashed when she accepted roles to star in two major motion pictures: Fear (1996), alongside Mark Wahlberg, and Freeway (1996) with Kiefer Sutherland. Although neither film was a huge box-office success, they did help to establish Reese as a rising starlet in Hollywood and open the door for bigger and better film roles. Those bigger roles came in movies such as Pleasantville (1998), Election (1999) and Cruel Intentions (1999).
Her breakthrough role came as Elle Woods in the 2001 comedy, Legally Blonde (2001). The movie was huge box-office smash and established Reese as one of the top female draws in Hollywood. The next year, she scored a follow-up hit with Sweet Home Alabama (2002), which went on to gross over $100 million dollars at the box office. In 2006, she took home the best actress Oscar for her role as June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line (2005). On the late 2000s and early 2010s, Reese continued to star in more romantic comedies, such as Four Christmases (2008) and How Do You Know (2010). In December 2010, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In the year 2014, she produced both Gone Girl (2014) and Wild (2014), for which she got nominated for best actress Oscar again for her role as Cheryl Strayed.Was nude in 2 movies, first at age 22 for ''Twilight (1998)''. It's assumed she used a body double for "The man in the moon (1991!)" Won Oscar áfter, in 2005- Actress
- Producer
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Hilary was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Judith Kay (Clough), a secretary, and Stephen Michael Swank, who served in the National Guard and was also a traveling salesman. Her maternal grandmother, Frances Martha Dominguez, was of Mexican descent, and her other roots include German, English, and Scottish. During her early childhood, her family moved to Spokane, Washington, and when she was six, to Bellingham, Washington.
Hilary was discovered as a child by producer Suzy Sachs, who coached her in acting. When she was nine years old, she starred in her first play as "Mowgli" in "The Jungle Book". She began to appear regularly in local theater and school plays. She went to school in Bellingham, where she lived with her family, until she was 16. She competed in the Junior Olympics and Washington State championships in swimming; she ranked 5th in the state in all-around gymnastics (which would come in handy for starring in The Next Karate Kid (1994) years later). In 1990, Hilary and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled in South Pasadena High School, and started acting professionally. She appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) but The Next Karate Kid (1994), where she got the part competing against hundreds of other actresses, was her breakout role. Ever since then, she has been much in demand and has worked non-stop in movies. She won the Best Actress Oscar for playing "Brandon Teena" in Boys Don't Cry (1999). In addition to the Oscar, Hilary won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress in a Drama" and "Best Actress" prizes from The New York Film Critics, The Los Angeles Film Critics, The Chicago Film Critics and The Broadcast Film Critics Association. She also won the "Breakthrough Performance" prize from The National Board of Review.
Hilary then appeared in supporting roles opposite Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves in Sam Raimi's The Gift (2000) and opposite Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Christopher Nolan's Insomnia (2002). Hilary then starred as "Alice Paul" in HBO's Iron Jawed Angels (2004), which told the story of the women's suffragist movement and she was honored with both SAG and Golden Globe nominations for her performance in this film. In 2004, Hilary starred opposite Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman as the title character in Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (2004); the story of a young woman's quest to realize her dream of becoming a professional boxer. For this performance, she was honored with her second Academy Award for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role" and has garnered "Best Actress" prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, the Screen Actors Guild, The Broadcast Film Critics, and a Golden Globe for "Best Lead Actress in a Drama".
Hilary Swank is the third youngest woman in history to win two Academy Awards for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role".
She subsequently had a supporting role opposite Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006), starred in Freedom Writers (2007), the true story of Long Beach schoolteacher, Erin Gruwell, The Reaping (2007) for Warner Brothers, and reunited with her Freedom Writers (2007) writer/director, Richard LaGravenese, starring in the film adaptation of Cecelia Ahern's novel, P.S. I Love You (2007).
An aficionado for anything that involves the outdoors, she enjoys: sky diving, river rafting and skiing.Was nude in 5 movies, first at age 23 for ''Heartwood (1998)''. Won Oscar áfter, in 2004- Producer
- Actress
- Costume Designer
Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner military figure Danie Theron was her great-great-uncle.
Theron received an education as a ballet dancer and has danced both the "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker". There was not much work for a young actress or dancer in South Africa, so she soon traveled to Europe and the United States, where she got a job at the Joffrey Ballet in New York. She was also able to work as a photo model. However, an injured knee put a halt to her dancing career.
In 1994, her mother bought her a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, and Charlize started visiting all of the agents on Hollywood Boulevard, but without any luck. She went to a bank to cash a check for $500 she received from her mother, and became furious when she learned that the bank would not cash it because it was an out-of-state check. She made a scene and an agent gave her his card, in exchange for learning American English, which she did by watching soap operas on television.
Her first role was in the B-film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995), a non-speaking part with three seconds of screen time. Her next role was as Helga Svelgen in 2 Days in the Valley (1996), which landed her the role of Tina Powers in That Thing You Do! (1996). Since then, she has starred in movies like The Devil's Advocate (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and The Italian Job (2003). On February 29, 2004, she won her first Academy Award, a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Monster (2003).Was nude in 16 movies, first at age 20 for "2 Days in the Valley (1996)". Won Oscar áfter, in 2003- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Elegant Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were there on educational visas.
Kidman is the daughter of Janelle Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony David Kidman, a biochemist and clinical psychologist. She is of English, Irish, and Scottish descent. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Nicole's father pursued his research on breast cancer, and then, three years later, made the pilgrimage back to her parents' native Sydney in Australia, where Nicole was raised. Young Nicole's first love was ballet, but she eventually took up mime and drama as well (her first stage role was a bleating sheep in an elementary school Christmas pageant). In her adolescent years, acting edged out the other arts and became a kind of refuge -- as her classmates sought out fun in the sun, the fair-skinned Kidman retreated to dark rehearsal halls to practice her craft. She worked regularly at the Philip Street Theater, where she once received a personal letter of praise and encouragement from audience member Jane Campion (then a film student). Kidman eventually dropped out of high school to pursue acting full-time. She broke into movies at age 16, landing a role in the Australian holiday favorite Bush Christmas (1983). That appearance touched off a flurry of film and television offers, including a lead in BMX Bandits (1983) and a turn as a schoolgirl-turned-protester in the miniseries Vietnam (1987) (for which she won her first Australian Film Institute Award). With the help of an American agent, she eventually made her US debut opposite Sam Neill in the at-sea thriller Dead Calm (1989).
Kidman's next casting coup scored her more than exposure. While starring as Tom Cruise's doctor/love interest in the racetrack romance Days of Thunder (1990), she won over the Hollywood hunk hook, line and sinker. After a whirlwind courtship (and decent box office returns), the couple wed on December 24, 1990. Determined not to let her new marital status overshadow her fledgling career, the actress pressed on. She appeared as a catty high school senior in the Australian film Flirting (1991), then as Dustin Hoffman's moll in the gangster flick Billy Bathgate (1991). She reunited with Cruise for Far and Away (1992), the story of young Irish lovers who flee to America in the late 1800s, and starred opposite Michael Keaton in the tear-tugger My Life (1993). Despite her steady employment, critics and moviegoers still had not quite warmed to Kidman as a leading lady. She tried to spice up her image by seducing Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995), but achieved her real breakthrough with Gus Van Sant's To Die For (1995). As a fame-crazed housewife determined to eliminate any obstacle in her path, Kidman proved that she had an impressive range and deadly comic timing. She took home a Golden Globe and several critics' awards for the performance. In 1996, Kidman stepped into a corset to work with her countrywoman and onetime admirer, Jane Campion, on the adaptation of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1996). A few months later, she tore across the screen as a nuclear weapons expert in The Peacemaker (1997), adding "action star" to her professional repertoire.
She and Cruise then disappeared into a notoriously long, secretive shoot for Stanley Kubrick's sexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut (1999). The couple's on-screen shenanigans prompted an increase in public speculation about their sex life (rumors had long been circulating that their marriage was a cover-up for Cruise's rumored homosexuality); tired of denying tabloid attacks, they successfully sued The Star for a story alleging that they needed a sex therapist to coach them through love scenes. Family life has always been a priority for Kidman. Born to social activists (mother was a feminist; father, a labor advocate), Nicole and her little sister, Antonia Kidman, discussed current events around the dinner table and participated in their parents' campaigns by passing out pamphlets on street corners. When her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, 17-year-old Nicole stopped working and took a massage course so that she could provide physical therapy (her mother eventually beat the cancer). She and Cruise adopted two children: Isabella Jane (born 1993) and Connor Antony (born 1995). Despite their rock-solid image, the couple announced in early 2001 that they were separating due to career conflicts. Her marriage to Cruise ended mid-summer of 2001.Was nude in 19 movies (WINNER!), first at age 18 years and 3 months for "Windrider (1986)". Won Oscar áfter, in 2002- Actress
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Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. Halle first came into the spotlight at seventeen years when she won the Miss Teen All-American Pageant, representing the state of Ohio in 1985 and, a year later in 1986, when she was the first runner-up in the Miss U.S.A. Pageant. After participating in the pageant, Halle became a model. It eventually led to her first weekly TV series, 1989's Living Dolls (1989), where she soon gained a reputation for her on-set tenacity, preferring to "live" her roles and remaining in character even when the cameras stopped rolling. It paid off though when she reportedly refused to bathe for several days before starting work on her role as a crack addict in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991) because the role provided her big screen breakthrough. The following year, she was cast as Eddie Murphy's love interest in Boomerang (1992), one of the few times that Murphy was evenly matched on screen. In 1994, Berry gained a youthful following for her performance as sexy secretary "Sharon Stone" in The Flintstones (1994). She next had a highly publicized starring role with Jessica Lange in the adoption drama Losing Isaiah (1995). Though the movie received mixed reviews, Berry didn't let that slow her down, and continued down her path to super-stardom.
In 1998, she received critical success when she starred as a street smart young woman who takes up with a struggling politician in Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998). The following year, she won even greater acclaim for her role as actress Dorothy Dandridge in made-for-cable's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Movie/Mini-Series. In 2000, she received box office success in X-Men (2000) in which she played "Storm", a mutant who has the ability to control the weather. In 2001, she starred in the thriller Swordfish (2001), and became the first African-American to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards, for her role as a grieving mother in the drama Monster's Ball (2001).Did 7 nude movies, first at age 32 for "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999)". Won Oscar áfter, in 2001- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Julia Fiona Roberts never dreamed she would become the most popular actress in America. She was born in Smyrna, Georgia, to Betty Lou (Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, and is of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. As a child, due to her love of animals, Julia originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but later studied journalism. When her brother, Eric Roberts, achieved some success in Hollywood, Julia decided to try acting. Her first break came in 1988 when she appeared in two youth-oriented movies Mystic Pizza (1988) and Satisfaction (1988). The movies introduced her to a new audience who instantly fell in love with this pretty woman. Julia's biggest success was in the signature movie Pretty Woman (1990), for which Julia got an Oscar nomination, and also won the People's Choice award for Favorite Actress. Even though Julia would spend the next few years either starring in serious movies, or playing fantasy roles like Tinkerbell, the movie audiences would always love Julia best in romantic comedies. With My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) Julia gave the genre fresh life that had been lacking in Hollywood for some time. Offscreen, after a brief marriage, Julia has been romantically linked with several actors, and married cinematographer Daniel Moder in 2002; the couple has three children together.
Julia has also become involved with UNICEF charities and has made visits to many different countries, including Haiti and India, in order to promote goodwill. Julia Robert remains one of the most popular and sought-after talents in Hollywood.Did 1 nude movie, at age 22 for "Pretty Woman (1990)". Won Oscar áfter, in 2000- Actress
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Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of noted producer and director Bruce Paltrow and Tony Award-winning actress Blythe Danner. Her father was from a Jewish family, while her mother is of mostly German descent. When Gwyneth was eleven, the family moved to Massachusetts, where her father began working in summer stock productions in the Berkshires. It was here that she received her early acting training under the tutelage of her parents. She graduated from the all-girls Spence School in New York City and moved to California where she attended the UC Santa Barbara, majoring in Art History. She soon quit, realizing it was not her passion. She made her film debut with a small part in Shout (1991) and for the next five years had featured roles in a mixed bag of film fare that included Flesh and Bone (1993); Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994); Se7en (1995); Jefferson in Paris (1995); Moonlight and Valentino (1995); and The Pallbearer (1996). It was her performance in the title role of Emma Woodhouse in Emma (1996) that led to her being offered the role of Viola in Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which she was awarded the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her roles have also included The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Shallow Hal (2001), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), Proof (2005), Iron Man (2008), Two Lovers (2008), and Country Strong (2010). She has two children with her former husband, English musician Chris Martin.Did 9 nude movies, first at age 20 for "Flesh and Bone (1993)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1998- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Helen Hunt began studying acting at the age of eight with her father, respected director and acting coach Gordon Hunt. A year later she made her professional debut and afterwards worked steadily in films, theatre and television.Did 6 nude movies, first at age 29 for "The Waterdance (1992)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1997- Actress
- Producer
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It was after the 1968 Democratic convention and there was a casting call for a film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted the convention. Two recent graduates of Catholic University in Washington DC, went to the audition in New York for Joe (1970). Chris Sarandon, who had studied to be an actor, was passed over. His wife Susan got a major role.
That role was as Susan Compton, the daughter of ad executive Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick). In the movie Dad Bill kills Susan's drug dealer boyfriend and next befriends Joe (Peter Boyle)-- a bigot who works on an assembly line and who collects guns.
Five years later, Sarandon made the film where fans of cult classics have come to know her as Janet, who gets entangled with transvestite Dr. Frank n Furter in The The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). More than 15 years after beginning her career Sarandon at last actively campaigned for a great role, Annie in Bull Durham (1988), flying at her own expense from Rome to Los Angeles. "It was such a wonderful script ... and did away with a lot of myths and challenged the American definition of success", she said. "When I got there, I spent some time with Kevin Costner, kissed some ass at the studio and got back on a plane". Her romance with the Bull Durham (1988)) supporting actor, Tim Robbins, had produced two sons by 1992 and put Sarandon in the position of leaving her domestic paradise only to accept roles that really challenged her. The result was four Academy Award nominations in the 1990s and best actress for Dead Man Walking (1995). Her first Academy Award nomination was for Louis Malle's Atlantic City (1980).Did 16 nude movies, first at age 23 for "Joe (1970)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1995- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis cast her as the female lead in King Kong (1976). The film attracted much unfavorable comment and, as a result, Lange was off the screen for three years. She was given a small but showy part in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), before giving a memorable performance in Bob Rafelson's The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), as an adulterous waitress. The following year, she won rave reviews for her exceptional portrayal of actress Frances Farmer in Frances (1982) and a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her work in Sydney Pollack's Tootsie (1982) (as a beautiful soap-opera actress). She was also outstanding as country singer Patsy Cline in Karel Reisz's Sweet Dreams (1985) and as a lawyer who defends her father and discovers his past in Music Box (1989). Other important films include Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991) (as a frightened housewife) and Tony Richardson's Blue Sky (1994), for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award as the mentally unbalanced wife of a military officer. She made her Broadway debut in 1992, playing "Blanche" in Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire".Did 6 nude movies, first at age 27 for "King Kong (1976)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1994- Actress
- Producer
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Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Opal Marguerite (Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250 acre farm. She is the youngest of seven children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first acting part was as Helen Keller in a fifth-grade play. In 1976 she went to Pittsburgh to pursue a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 1980, she went to New York City, where she met playwright Beth Henley in a stalled elevator. Hunter went on to get roles in a number of Henley's southern Gothic plays, including Crimes of the Heart and The Miss Firecracker Contest. In 1982 the actress went to Los Angeles. She landed her first starring role in the movies in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona (1987), a part that is said to have been written with her in mind. She gained stardom in 1987 when she played the driven TV news producer Jane Craig in James L. Brooks' Broadcast News (1987). In 1993 she earned an Academy Award and worldwide acclaim with her performance as a mute bride to a New Zealand planter in The Piano (1993).Did 12 nude movies, first at age 35 for "The Piano (1993)". Won Oscar for that role in 1993.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Emma Thompson was born on April 15, 1959 in Paddington, London, into a family of actors - father Eric Thompson and mother Phyllida Law, who has co-starred with Thompson in several films. Her sister, Sophie Thompson, is an actor as well. Her father was English-born and her mother is Scottish-born. Thompson's wit was cultivated by a cheerful, clever, creative family atmosphere, and she was a popular and successful student. She attended Cambridge University, studying English Literature, and was part of the university's Footlights Group, the famous group where, previously, many of the Monty Python members had first met.
Thompson graduated in 1980 and embarked on her career in entertainment, beginning with stints on BBC radio and touring with comedy shows. She soon got her first major break in television, on the comedy skit program Alfresco (1983), writing and performing along with her fellow Footlights Group alums Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. She also worked on other TV comedy review programs in the mid-1980s, occasionally with some of her fellow Footlights alums, and often with actor Robbie Coltrane.
Thompson found herself collaborating again with Fry in 1985, this time in his stage adaptation of the play "Me and My Girl" in London's West End, in which she had a leading role, playing Sally Smith. The show was a success and she received favorable reviews, and the strength of her performance led to her casting as the lead in the BBC television miniseries Fortunes of War (1987), in which Thompson and her co-star, Kenneth Branagh, play an English ex-patriate couple living in Eastern Europe as the Second World War erupts. Thompson won a BAFTA Award for her work on the program. She married Branagh in 1989, continued to work with him professionally, and formed a production company with him. In the late 80s and early 90s, she starred in a string of well-received and successful television and film productions, most notably her lead role in the Merchant-Ivory production of Howards End (1992), which confirmed her ability to carry a movie on both sides of the Atlantic and appropriately showered her with trans-Atlantic honors - both an Oscar and a BAFTA award.
Since then, Thompson has continued to move effortlessly between the art film world and mainstream Hollywood, though even her Hollywood roles tend to be in more up-market productions. She continues to work on television as well, but is generally very selective about which roles she takes. She writes for the screen as well, such as the screenplay for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), in which she also starred as Elinor Dashwood, and the teleplay adaptation of Margaret Edson's acclaimed play Wit (2001), in which she also starred.
Thompson is known for her sophisticated, skillful, though her critics say somewhat mannered, performances, and of course for her arch wit, which she is unafraid to point at herself - she is a fearless self-satirist. Thompson and Branagh divorced in 1994, and Thompson is now married to fellow actor Greg Wise, who had played Willoughby in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). Thompson and Wise have one child, Gaia, born in 1999. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama.Did 6 nude movies, first at age 30 for "The Tall Guy (1989)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1992- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).Did 6 nude movies, first at age 26 for "The Accused (1988)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1991- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Multi-talented, multi-award-winning actress Kathleen (Doyle) Bates was born on June 28, 1948, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the youngest of three girls born to Bertye Kathleen (Talbot), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer. Her grandfather was author Finis L. Bates. Kathy has English, as well as Irish, Scottish, and German, ancestry, and one of her ancestors, an Irish emigrant to New Orleans, once served as President Andrew Jackson's doctor.
Kathy discovered acting appearing in high school plays and studied drama at Southern Methodist University, graduating in 1969. With her mind firmly set, she moved to New York City in 1970 and paid her dues by working everything from a cash register to taking lunch orders. Things started moving quickly up the ladder after giving a tour-de-force performance alongside Christopher Walken at Buffalo's Studio Arena Theatre in Lanford Wilson's world premiere of "Lemon Sky" in 1970, but she also had a foreshadowing of the heartbreak to come after the successful show relocated to New York's off-Broadway Playhouse Theatre without her and Walken wound up winning a Drama Desk award.
By the mid-to-late 1970s, Kathy was treading the boards frequently as a rising young actress of the New York and regional theater scene. She appeared in "Casserole" and "A Quality of Mercy" (both 1975) before earning exceptional reviews for her role of Joanne in "Vanities". She took her first Broadway curtain call in 1980's "Goodbye Fidel," which lasted only six performances. She then went directly into replacement mode when she joined the cast of the already-established and highly successful "Fifth of July" in 1981.
Kathy made a false start in films with Taking Off (1971), in which she was billed as "Bobo Bates". She didn't film again until Straight Time (1978), starring Dustin Hoffman, and that part was not substantial enough to cause a stir. Things turned hopeful, however, when Kathy and the rest of the female ensemble were given the chance to play their respective Broadway parts in the film version of Robert Altman's Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). It was a juicy role for Kathy and film audiences finally started noticing the now 34-year-old.
Still and all, it was the New York stage that continued to earn Kathy awards and acclaim. She was pure textbook to any actor studying how to disappear into a role. Her characters ranged from free and life-affirming to downright pitiable. Despite winning a Tony Award nomination and Outer Critic's Circle Award for her stark, touchingly sad portrait of a suicidal daughter in 1983's "'night, Mother" and the Obie and Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for her powerhouse job as a romantic misfit in "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune," Kathy had no box-office pull, however, and was never a strong consideration when the roles transferred to the screen. Her award-winning stage went to established film stars. First Sissy Spacek took over her potent role as the suicidal Jessie Cates in 'night, Mother (1986), then Michelle Pfeiffer seized the moment to play her dumpy lover character in Frankie and Johnny (1991). It would take Oscar glory to finally rectify the injustice.
It was Kathy's fanatical turn as the drab, chunky, porcine-looking psychopath Annie Wilkes, who kidnaps her favorite author (James Caan) and subjects him to a series of horrific tortures, that finally turned the tide for her in Hollywood. With the 1990 shocker Misery (1990), based on the popular Stephen King novel, Bates and Caan were box office magic. Moreover, Kathy captured the "Best Actress" Oscar and Golden Globe award, a first in that genre (horror) for that category. To add to her happiness she married Tony Campisi, also an actor, in 1991.
Quality film scripts now started coming her way and the 1990s proved to be a rich and rewarding time for her. First, she and another older "overnight" film star, fellow Oscar winner Jessica Tandy, starred together in the modern portion of the beautifully nuanced, flashback period piece Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). She then outdid herself as the detached and depressed housekeeper accused of murdering her abusive husband (David Strathairn) in Dolores Claiborne (1995). Surprisingly, she was left out of the Oscar race for these two excellent performances. Not so, however, for her flashy political advisor Libby Holden in the movie Primary Colors (1998), receiving praise and a "Best Supporting Actress" nomination.
Kathy has continued to work prolifically on TV as a 14-time Emmy winner or nominee thus far. She has also taken to directing a couple of TV-movies on the sly. As most actors, she has been in hit and miss TV shows. On the hit side, she has earned a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Jay Leno's manager playing tough politics in The Late Shift (1996) and played to the hilt the cruel-minded orphanage operator, Miss Hannigan, in Annie (1999) for which she also earned an Emmy nom. She has done some eye-catching, offbeat turns on regular series such as Six Feet Under (2001) (for which she also earned a DGA award for helming an episode), The Office (2005), Harry's Law (2011) and especially American Horror Story (2011) for which she won an Emmy as Ethel Darling. She also won an Emmy for a guest episode on the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003).
Interesting millennium filming have included a Catholic school's Mother Superior in the comic drama Bruno (2000); Jesse James' mother in American Outlaws (2001); a quirky, liberal mom in About Schmidt (2002) for which she earned another "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar nomination; a brief but potent turn as Gertrude Stein in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011); Queen Victoria in the adventurous remake of Around the World in 80 Days (2004); wacky parent types in the comedies Failure to Launch (2006) and Relative Strangers (2006); Mother Claus in the seasonal farce Fred Claus (2007); an over-gushy foster mother in the dramedy The Great Gilly Hopkins (2015); and a wrenching performance as the mother of a suspected terrorist in Richard Jewell (2019) for which she earned her third "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar nomination.
Divorced from husband Campisi since 1997, Kathy has been the Executive Committee Chair of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors.Did 2 nude movies, first at age 43 for "At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991)". One of only six who fírst won the Oscar, in 1990- Actress
- Soundtrack
A beloved, twinkly blue-eyed doyenne of stage and screen, actress Jessica Tandy's career spanned nearly six and a half decades. In that span of time, she enjoyed an amazing film renaissance at age 80, something unheard of in a town that worships youth and nubile beauty. She was born Jessie Alice Tandy in London in 1909, the daughter of Jessie Helen (Horspool), the head of a school for mentally handicapped children, and Harry Tandy, a traveling salesman. Her parents enrolled her as a teenager at the Ben Greet Academy of Acting, where she showed immediate promise. She was 16 when she made her professional bow as Sara Manderson in the play "The Manderson Girls", and was subsequently invited to join the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Within a couple of years, Jessica was making a number of other debuts as well. Her first West End play was in "The Rumour" at the Court Theatre in 1929, her Gotham bow was in "The Matriarch" at the Longacre Theatre in 1930, and her initial film role was as a maid in The Indiscretions of Eve (1932).
Jessica married British actor Jack Hawkins in 1932 after the couple had met performing in the play "Autumn Crocus" the year before. They had one daughter, Susan, before parting ways after eight years of marriage. An unconventional beauty with slightly stern-eyed and sharp, hawkish features, she was passed over for leading lady roles in films, thereby focusing strongly on a transatlantic stage career throughout the 1930s and 1940s. She grew in stature while enacting a succession of Shakespeare's premiere ladies (Titania, Viola, Ophelia, Cordelia). At the same time, she enjoyed personal successes elsewhere in such plays as "French Without Tears", "Honour Thy Father", "Jupiter Laughs", "Anne of England" and "Portrait of a Madonna". And then she gave life to Blanche DuBois.
When Tennessee Williams' masterpiece "A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, Jessica's name became forever associated with this entrancing Southern belle character. One of the most complex, beautifully drawn, and still sought-after femme parts of all time, she went on to win the coveted Tony award. Aside from introducing Marlon Brando to the general viewing public, "Streetcar" shot Jessica's marquee value up a thousandfold. But not in films.
While her esteemed co-stars Brando, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden were given the luxury of recreating their roles in Elia Kazan's stark, black-and-white cinematic adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Jessica was devastatingly bypassed. Vivien Leigh, who played the role on stage in London and had already immortalized another coy, manipulative Southern belle on celluloid (Scarlett O'Hara), was a far more marketable film celebrity at the time and was signed on to play the delusional Blanche. To be fair, Leigh was nothing less than astounding in the role and went on to deservedly win the Academy Award (along with Malden and Hunter). Jessica would exact her revenge on Hollywood in later years.
In 1942, she entered into a second marriage, with actor/producer/director Hume Cronyn, a 52-year union that produced two children, Christopher and Tandy, the latter an actor in her own right. The couple not only enjoyed great solo success, they relished performing in each other's company. A few of their resounding theatre triumphs included the "The Fourposter" (1951), "Triple Play" (1959), "Big Fish, Little Fish (1962), "Hamlet" (he played Polonius; she played Gertrude) (1963), "The Three Sisters (1963) and "A Delicate Balance." They supported together in films too, their first being The Seventh Cross (1944). In the film The Green Years (1946), Jessica, who was two years older than Cronyn, actually played his daughter! Throughout the 1950s, they built up a sturdy reputation as "America's First Couple of the Theatre."
In 1963, Jessica made an isolated film appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds (1963). Low on the pecking order at the time (pun intended), Hitchcock gave Jessica a noticeable secondary role, and Jessica made the most of her brittle scenes as the high-strung, overbearing mother of Rod Taylor, who witnesses horror along the California coast. It was not until the 1980s that Jessica (and Hume, to a lesser degree) experienced a mammoth comeback in Hollywood.
Alongside Hume she delighted movie audiences in such enjoyable fare as Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), The World According to Garp (1982), Cocoon (1985) and *batteries not included (1987). In 1989, however, octogenarian Jessica was handed the senior citizen role of a lifetime as the prickly Southern Jewish widow who gradually forms a trusting bond with her black chauffeur in the genteel drama Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Jessica was presented with the Oscar, Golden Globe and British Film Awards, among others, for her exceptional work in the film that also won "Best Picture". Deemed Hollywood royalty now, she was handed the cream of the crop in elderly film parts and went on to win another Oscar nomination for Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) a couple of years later.
Jessica also enjoyed some of her biggest stage hits ("Streetcar" notwithstanding) during her twilight years, earning two more Tony Awards for her exceptional work in "The Gin Game" (1977) and "Foxfire" (1982). Both co-starred her husband, Hume, and both were beautifully transferred by the couple to television. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1990, Jessica bravely continued working with Emmy-winning distinction on television. She died of her illness on September 11, 1994. Her last two films, Nobody's Fool (1994) and Camilla (1994), were released posthumously.Did 1 nude movie, at age 85 (OLDEST!) for "Camilla (1994)". One of only six who fírst won the Oscar, in 1989.- Actress
- Producer
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Marlee Beth Matlin was born on August 24, 1965 in Morton Grove, Illinois, to Libby (Hammer) and Donald Matlin, an automobile dealer. She has two older brothers. Her family is of Russian Jewish and Polish Jewish descent.
Marlee lost much of her hearing at the age of eighteen months. That did not stop her from acting in a children's theater company at age seven; she was Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz". Her deafness never held her back. As an adult, she said it so eloquently: "I have always resisted putting limitations on myself, both professionally and personally." Marlee studied criminal justice at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, and maintained her passion for acting after graduating. While performing on stage through Chicago and the Midwest, Marlee attracted notice for her performance in a production of the Tony Award-winning play "Children of a Lesser God" and was cast in the movie version Children of a Lesser God (1986). Although this was her movie debut, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. While shooting her next movie Walker (1987), in Nicaragua, large-hearted Marlee took time to visit both hearing and hearing-impaired children. She continued this tradition of visiting local children through her travels to Germany, England, Italy, Australia, Mexico, Canada, etc.
Her interest in the criminal justice field played a role in her on screen career; she portrayed an assistant D.A. on the television series Reasonable Doubts (1991), while off screen she married police officer Kevin Grandalski on August 29, 1993. The couple has four children: Sarah (born 1996), Brandon (born 2000), Tyler (born 2002), and Isabelle (born 2003). In 1994, Marlee was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance as Laurie Bey on the television series Picket Fences (1992). Marlee is also a spokeswoman for the National Captioning Institute. In 1995, she testified at a congressional hearing and helped get a law passed that requires all television sets 13 inches or larger to be manufactured with built-in chips to provide closed captioning on their screens; this was a godsend for deaf viewers.
Marlee serves as the national spokeswoman for the largest provider of television closed captioning, and has spoken on behalf of CC in countries such as Australia, England, France and Italy. She also serves on the boards of a number of charitable organizations, including Very Special Arts, the Starlight Foundation, and other charities that primarily benefit children. As someone who loves children so much, it is only fitting that she has four of her own. Professionally, Marlee has even tried producing, being the executive producer for Where the Truth Lies (1999).Did 4 nude movies, first at age 20 for "Children of a Lesser God (1986)". Won Oscar for that role in 1986- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Sally Margaret Field was born November 6, 1946 in Pasadena, California, to actress Margaret Field (née Morlan) and salesman Richard Dryden Field. Her parents divorced in 1950 and her mother then married stuntman Jock Mahoney, and they had a daughter, Princess O'Mahoney. She also has a brother, Richard Field. Sally attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California.
Her acting career began in 1965, when she landed the role of Frances Elizabeth 'Gidget' Lawrence in Gidget (1965); it was canceled after only one season because of bad ratings. She went on to star in The Flying Nun (1967), which ran for three seasons. She also appeared in her first film in 1967, The Way West (1967) opposite Kirk Douglas. In the next few years she appeared in numerous TV movies and TV shows such as Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring (1971), Marriage: Year One (1971), The Girl with Something Extra (1973), and Sybil (1976). In 1977 she starred alongside then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds in the box office hit Smokey and the Bandit (1977), which led to a less successful sequel in 1980. In 1979 she starred in the popular film Norma Rae (1979) and she received her first Oscar for that role.
In the years that followed she starred in films such as Absence of Malice (1981), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), Places in the Heart (1984) (she received her second Oscar for her role), Murphy's Romance (1985), Punchline (1988) and Steel Magnolias (1989). In 1993 she starred alongside Robin Williams and Pierce Brosnan in the popular comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). A year after, she played the role of Tom Hanks character's mother (even though she's only ten years older than he is in real life) in Forrest Gump (1994). The film was a huge commercial success and won six Academy awards.
Since then she has appeared in TV movies and miniseries such as A Woman of Independent Means (1995), Merry Christmas, George Bailey (1997), From the Earth to the Moon (1998) and David Copperfield (2000). In 2000 she appeared in the film Where the Heart Is (2000) with Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd, and in 2003 she starred alongside Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003). She also appeared in 12 episodes of ER (1994) from 2000 to 2006. From 2006 to 2011, she played the role of matriarch Nora Walker in the hit television show Brothers & Sisters (2006), which earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Getting back into film, she earned her third Oscar nomination for Lincoln (2012) and played Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and its blockbuster sequel.
Sally has been married twice, first to Steven Craig from 1968 to 1973. They had two sons together, Peter Craig and Eli Craig. Her second marriage was to film producer Alan Greisman from 1984 to 1994. They had one son together, Samuel Greisman. Between marriages, from 1976 to 1980, she was in a relationship with Burt Reynolds.Did 2 nude movies, first at age 29 for "Stay Hungry (1976)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1984- Actress
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Shirley MacLaine was born Shirley MacLean Beaty in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from Nova Scotia, Canada, and her father, Ira Owens Beaty, a professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. Her brother, Warren Beatty, was born on March 30, 1937. Her ancestry includes English and Scottish.
Shirley was the tallest in her ballet classes at the Washington School of Ballet. Just after she graduated from Washington-Lee High School, she packed her bags and headed for New York. While auditioning for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Me and Juliet", the producer kept mispronouncing her name. She then changed her name from Shirley MacLean Beaty to Shirley MacLaine. She later had a role in "The Pajama Game", as a member of the chorus and understudy to Carol Haney. A few months into the run, Shirley was going to leave the show for the lead role in "Can-Can" but ended up filling in for Haney, who had broken her ankle and could not perform. She would fill in for Carol, again, three months later, following another injury, the very night that movie producer Hal B. Wallis was in the audience. Wallis signed MacLaine to a five-year contract to Paramount Pictures. Three months later, she was off to shoot The Trouble with Harry (1955). She then took roles in Hot Spell (1958) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956), completed not too long before her daughter, Sachi Parker (born Stephanie), was born. With Shirley's career on track, she played one of her most challenging roles: "Ginny Moorhead" in Some Came Running (1958), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She went on to do The Sheepman (1958) and The Matchmaker (1958). In 1960, she got her second Academy Award nomination for The Apartment (1960). Three years later, she received a third nomination for Irma la Douce (1963). In 1969, she brought her friend Bob Fosse from Broadway to direct her in Sweet Charity (1969), from which she got her "signature" song, "If My Friends Could See Me Now". After a five-year hiatus, Shirley made a documentary on China called The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975), for which she received an Oscar nomination for best documentary.
In 1977, she got her fourth Best Actress Oscar nomination for The Turning Point (1977). In 1979, she worked with Peter Sellers in Being There (1979), made shortly before his death. After 20 years in the film industry, she finally took home the Best Actress Oscar for Terms of Endearment (1983). After a five-year hiatus, Shirley made Madame Sousatzka (1988), a critical and financial hit that took top prize at the Venice Film Festival. In 1989, she starred with Dolly Parton, Sally Field and Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias (1989). She received rave reviews playing Meryl Streep's mother in Postcards from the Edge (1990) and for Guarding Tess (1994). In 1996, she reprised her role from "Terms of Endearment" as "Aurora Greenway" in The Evening Star (1996), which didn't repeat its predecessor's success at the box office. In mid-1998, she directed Bruno (2000), which starred Alex D. Linz. In February 2001, Shirley worked with close friends once again in These Old Broads (2001), and co-starred with Julia Stiles in Carolina (2003) and with Kirstie Alley in Salem Witch Trials (2002).
MacLaine as her own website which includes her own radio show and interviews, the Encounter Board, and Independent Expression, a members-only section of the site. In the past few years, Shirley starred in a CBS miniseries based on the life of cosmetics queen Mary Kay Ash--Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay (2002), and wrote two more books, "The Camino" in 2001, and "Out On A Leash" in 2003. After taking a slight hiatus from motion pictures, Shirley returned with roles in the movies that were small, but wonderfully scene-stealing: Bewitched (2005) with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, In Her Shoes (2005) with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, in which Shirley was nominated for a Golden Globe in the best supporting actress category, and Rumor Has It... (2005) with Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner. Shirley completed filming of Closing the Ring (2007), directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, in 2007. Her latest book is entitled "Sage-ing While Ag-ing"; Shirley's latest film is Valentine's Day (2010), which debuted in theaters on February 12, 2010.Did 5 nude movies, first at age 33 for "Woman Times Seven (1967)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1983- Actress
- Art Department
- Director
As a kid, Sissy Spacek climbed trees, rode horses, swam, and played in the woods. She was born Mary Elizabeth Spacek on December 25, 1949, in Quitman, Texas, to Virginia Frances (Spilman) and Edwin Arnold Spacek, Sr., a county agricultural agent. Her father's family was of Czech and German origin.
Sissy attended Quitman High School and was homecoming queen. After graduating, she embarked on an acting career, gaining interest in the profession through her cousin, actor Rip Torn. Sissy relocated to New York, and through him, enrolled in the New York branch of the Actors Studio. She studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute while also pursuing work as a model and singer, appearing in West Village showcases such as the Bitter End for $10 a night. Sissy eventually broke into film and one of her first roles was as Holly in the classic Badlands (1973). The art director on that film was Jack Fisk, with whom she would marry in 1974 and ultimately collaborate on eight films. Sissy followed this landmark film with a star-making and Oscar nominated performance in Carrie (1976), in which she played a humiliated prom queen who goes postal with her telekinesis. Sissy has had an enduring and award winning career in movies and television, which includes an Oscar as Best Actress for Coal Miner's Daughter (1980). The parents of two grown daughters, Sissy and Jack live on a large horse ranch in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Even though she continued to appear in film and television during the late 1980s and 1990s, Sissy devoted most of those years to her family. Then, in 2001, Sissy returned to the big screen in a major way with a powerful performance in In the Bedroom (2001), which not only earned her a sixth Best Actress Oscar nomination, but a win for Best Actress at the Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, and numerous critics association awards. Sissy continues to work steadily as an actress, but in 2012, her credits expanded even further to include a memoir, My Extraordinary Ordinary Life.Was nude in 6 movies, first at age 22 for "Prime Cut (1972)". She never did underaged nudity....that's just her (extremely young) looks. Won Oscar áfter, in 1980- Actress
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Born in New York City to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario-born New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, Jane Seymour Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life in the limelight. Although she initially showed little inclination to follow her father's trade, she was prompted by Joshua Logan to appear with her father in the 1954 Omaha Community Theatre production of "The Country Girl". Her interest in acting grew after meeting Lee Strasberg in 1958 and joining the Actors Studio. Her screen debut in Tall Story (1960) (directed by Logan) marked the beginning of a highly successful and respected acting career highlighted by two Academy Awards for her performances in Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978), and five Oscar nominations for Best Actress in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Julia (1977), The China Syndrome (1979), The Morning After (1986) and On Golden Pond (1981), which was the only film she made with her father. Her professional success contrasted with her personal life, which was often laden with scandal and controversy. Her appearance in several risqué movies (including Barbarella (1968)) by then-husband Roger Vadim was followed by what was to become her most debated and controversial period: her espousal of anti-establishment causes and especially her anti-war activities during the Vietnam War. Her political involvement continued with fellow activist and husband Tom Hayden in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1980s she started the aerobic exercise craze with the publication of the "Jane Fonda's Workout Book". She and Hayden divorced, and she married broadcasting mogul Ted Turner in 1991.Did 9 nude movies, first at age 26 (!) for "La ronde (1964)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1978- Actress
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Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. After appearing in summer stock for several months, she got her first major stage role in the Broadway rock musical "Hair". As understudy to the lead, she gained attention by not removing any of her clothing. In 1968, Woody Allen cast her in his Broadway play "Play It Again, Sam," which had a successful run. It was during this time that she became involved with Allen and appeared in a number of his films. The first one was Play It Again, Sam (1972), the screen adaptation of the stage play. That same year Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay in the Oscar-winning The Godfather (1972), and she was on her way to stardom. She reprized that role in the film's first sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974). She then appeared with Allen again in Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975).
In 1977, she broke away from her comedy image to appear in the chilling Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), which won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was the same year that she appeared in what many regard as her best performance, in the title role of Annie Hall (1977), which Allen wrote specifically for her (her real last name is Hall, and her nickname is Annie), and what an impact she made. She won the Oscar and the British Award for Best Actress, and Allen won the Directors Award from the DGA. She started a fashion trend with her unisex clothes and was the poster girl for a lot of young males. Her mannerisms and awkward speech became almost a national craze. The question being asked, though, was, "Is she just a lightweight playing herself, or is there more depth to her personality?" For whatever reason, she appeared in but one film a year for the next two years and those films were by Allen. When they broke up she was next involved with Warren Beatty and appeared in his film Reds (1981), as the bohemian female journalist Louise Bryant. For her performance, she received nominations for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe. For the rest of the 1980s she appeared infrequently in films but won nominations in three of them. Attempting to break the typecasting she had fallen into, she took on the role of a confused, somewhat naive woman who becomes involved with Middle Eastern terrorists in The Little Drummer Girl (1984). To offset her lack of movie work, Diane began directing. She directed the documentary Heaven (1987), as well as some music videos. For television she directed an episode of the popular, but strange, Twin Peaks (1990).
In the 1990s, she began to get more mature roles, though she reprized the role of Kay Corleone in the third "Godfather" epic, The Godfather Part III (1990). She appeared as the wife of Steve Martin in the hit Father of the Bride (1991) and again in Father of the Bride Part II (1995). In 1993 she once again teamed with Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), which was well received. In 1995 she received high marks for Unstrung Heroes (1995), her first major feature as a director.Did 4 nude movies, first at age 31 for "Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)". One of only six who fírst won the Oscar, in 1978- Actress
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An icy, elegant blonde with a knack for playing complex and strong-willed female leads, enormously popular actress Faye Dunaway starred in several films which defined what many would come to call Hollywood's "second Golden Age." During her tenure at the top of the box office, she was a more than capable match for some of the biggest macho stars of the 1970s. Then an overwrought turn in the disastrous biopic Mommie Dearest (1981) effectively derailed her career - but, at the same time, made her a bit of a camp favorite in the gay community - though she's been afforded infrequent opportunities worthy of her talent since that unfortunate halt.
Born prematurely on Jan. 14, 1941 in Bascom, FL, Dorothy Faye Dunaway was the daughter of MacDowell Dunaway, Jr., a career Army officer, and his wife, Grace April Smith. After a stint as a teenaged beauty queen in Florida, she intended to pursue education at the University of Florida, but switched to acting, earning her degree from Boston University in 1962. She was given the enviable task of choosing between a Fulbright Scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts or a role in the Broadway production of "A Man For All Seasons" as a member of the American National Theatre and Academy. She picked the latter, enjoying a fruitful stage career for the next two years, which was capped by appearances in "After the Fall" and "Hogan's Goat." The latter - an off-Broadway production in 1967 - required Dunaway to tumble down a flight of steps in every performance, earning her a screen debut in the wan counterculture comedy The Happening (1967). Just five months after its release, however, she was wowing audiences across the country as Depression-era bank robber Bonnie Parker in Arthur Penn's controversial Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Her turn as the naïve but trigger-happy and sexually aggressive Parker earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, and provided a direct route to the front of the line for Hollywood leading ladies in an unbelievably short amount of time.
Dunaway followed this success with another hit, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), in which her coolly sensual insurance investigator generated considerable sparks with playboy and jewel thief Steve McQueen. She then bounced between arthouse efforts like Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), directed by her ex-boyfriend, photographer Jerry Schatzberg, and the revisionist Western 'Doc' (1971), as well as big-budget efforts like Little Big Man (1970), which cast her as a predatory preacher's wife with designs on Dustin Hoffman's reluctant Native American hero. Dunaway also balanced these projects with several well-regarded theatrical productions, including a 1972-73 stint as Blanche Du Bois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," and notable TV-movies like The Woman I Love (1972), which cast her as the Duchess of Windsor, and TV broadcasts of Hogan's Goat (1971) and After the Fall (1974). But her turn as the duplicitous Lady De Winter in Richard Lester's splashy, slapstick take on The Three Musketeers (1973) and its sequel The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) preceded a long period of critical and box office hits, starting with her masterful performance in Chinatown (1974).
Dunaway's turn as Evelyn Mulwray, the mysterious woman who draws detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) into a dark and complicated web of murder, incest, and catastrophic business deals, seemed the epitome of every femme fatale to ever stride across a chiaroscuro-lit scene in classic noir. But Dunaway also found the horribly wounded core of her character as well, and turned Evelyn from a pastiche to a full-blown and emotionally resonant human being. Critics and award groups rushed to nominate Dunaway for the role, and she netted her second Academy Award nod, as well as Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Dunaway had fought hard for her performance - her battles with director Roman Polanski were no secret - but sadly, she lost the Oscar to Ellen Burstyn for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). However, it would be Dunaway's performance which stood the test of time.
High-gloss turns in The Towering Inferno (1974) and Sydney Pollack's political thriller Three Days of the Condor (1975) preceded one of her best television performances; that of Depression-era radio preacher Aimee Semple MacPherson in The Disappearance of Aimee (1976). Even more startling was her sterling role in Network (1976), Paddy Chayefsky's blistering take on the television industry. Dunaway pulled out all the stops as an executive on the rise who stops at nothing to advance her career - even bedding veteran producer William Holden. Critics again rose in unison to praise Dunaway, and she finally netted an Oscar for the role, as well as a Golden Globe.
Surprisingly, Dunaway's career began to falter after her Oscar win. She was effective as a fashion photographer who experiences disturbing visions in Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), but was wasted in thankless roles as the dissatisfied ex of washed-up boxer Jon Voight in The Champ (1979) and wife to Frank Sinatra's detective in The First Deadly Sin (1980). And then came Mommie Dearest (1981), director Frank Perry's biopic of actress Joan Crawford based on the tell-all book by her daughter Christina Crawford. Crawford herself had praised Dunaway in the early stages of her career, and while some critics gave positive reviews to her performance - in particular, the extent to which she physically transformed herself into Crawford - most fixated on the hysterical dialogue and garish scenes of child abuse. Clips of Dunaway as Crawford bellowing "No more wire hangers!" became immediate laugh-getters on late-night television, and a substantial gay following rose up in response to the film's high camp value. Dunaway, however, found none of the response amusing, and later admitted her regret in taking the role. Whether laughable or pure genius, no one could deny that Dunaway threw her everything into the role. The film's continued cult success proved she had succeeded in becoming Crawford.
The fallout from "Mommie Dearest" obscured Dunaway's follow-up projects, which included the title role in the TV-movie Evita Peron (1981) and a return to Broadway in 1982's "The Curse of an Aching Heart". Discouraged, she moved to London with her second husband, photographer Terry O'Neill, who had also served as a producer on "Mommie Dearest." For the next few years, Dunaway appeared sporadically in films, most of which underscored her newly minted status as a camp icon. The Wicked Lady (1983) was an absurd, near-softcore period drama by Michael Winner, with Dunaway as an 18th-century highway robber. Fans of her early dramatic work were similarly aghast by her turn as a shrieking witch battling Helen Slater's Girl of Steel in Supergirl (1984). Only a Golden Globe-winning appearance in the cumbersome miniseries Ellis Island (1984) offered any respite from the negative press which now continued to follow her.
Dunaway returned to the United States in 1987 following her divorce from O'Neill, and attempted to rebuild her career and reputation by appearing in several independent dramas. She was widely praised for her performance as a once-glamorous woman felled by alcohol in Barbet Schroeder's Barfly (1987), and served as executive producer and star of Cold Sassy Tree (1989), a TV adaptation of the popular novel by Olive Ann Burns about an independent-minded woman who romances a recently widowed store owner (Richard Widmark). Dunaway was exceptionally busy for the remainder of the decade in both major Hollywood features and independent fare, though her strong women now occasionally sported an unfortunate shrill side. She was Robert Duvall's frosty wife in the dystopian thriller The Handmaid's Tale (1990) and contributed a vocal cameo as Evelyn Mulwray in The Two Jakes (1990), the ill-fated sequel to "Chinatown". Other notable performances came as the unhappy wife of psychiatrist Marlon Brando in Don Juan DeMarco (1994), as the daughter of imprisoned Klansman Gene Hackman in The Chamber (1996), and as a bartender caught in the middle of a hostage standoff in Kevin Spacey's Albino Alligator (1996). She later received Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations as the matron of a wealthy Jewish family in turmoil in The Twilight of the Golds (1996). Perhaps her best turn of the decade was as a seductive murderess who attempts to sway the unflappable Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) in It's All in the Game (1993), which earned her a 1994 Emmy. She won her third Golden Globe as modeling agency head Wilhelmina Cooper in the biopic Gia (1998), starring Angelina Jolie as doomed model Gia Carangi.
The 1990s were also not without incident for Dunaway. She was embroiled in an ugly lawsuit against Andrew Lloyd Webber after he closed a Los Angeles production of his musical version of "Sunset Blvd." with claims that she was unable to sing to his standards. The suit was later settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. A national tour of Terrence McNally's "Master Class", about the legendary opera diva Maria Callas, ended with her involvement in a suit over legal rights to the play. The project was expected to become her next great film role but remained uncompleted more than a decade after the 1996 tour. Her attempt at sitcom stardom in It Had to Be You (1993), co-starring Robert Urich, was met with universal disinterest, and the project was announced as being retooled without Dunaway prior to its cancellation.
Dunaway's schedule remained busy from 2000 onward, mostly in television and small independent features. She co-starred with Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix as the wife of career criminal James Caan in The Yards (2000), then made her directorial debut with the short The Yellow Bird (2001), based on the play by Tennessee Williams. Younger audiences had their first taste of Dunaway's particular star power as Ian Somerhalder's mother in The Rules of Attraction (2002), Roger Avary's amped-up adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel, before Dunaway turned up the heat as a merciless celebrity judge on the reality series The Starlet (2005).
Dunaway penned her memoirs, Looking For Gatsby, in 1995, one year before receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Attached throughout her professional career to intriguing men ranging from Lenny Bruce to Marcello Mastroianni, she was twice married; her first husband was singer Peter Wolf of the popular seventies rock group, The J. Geils Band. Liam O'Neill, her son by second husband Terry, followed in her footsteps with minor acting roles beginning in 2004. His father later dropped a bombshell in 2003 by revealing that Liam was not their biological son, but was adopted - a claim that Dunaway had previously denied.
A series of occasional roles in little-seen films followed, but Dunaway was unexpectedly thrust back into the public eye at the 2017 Academy Awards. Reunited with Warren Beatty on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of "Bonnie and Clyde," the pair were tapped to present the Best Picture award to close the night. Before proceeding onstage, Beatty was mistakenly handed a backup envelope for Best Actress in a Leading Role, which had already been won by Emma Stone for La La Land (2016). Unsure what to do when he opened the envelope and discovered the error, Beatty stalled for time and showed the card to Dunaway; misunderstanding his intent, the actress announced that the Best Picture Oscar went to "La La Land." During producer Jordan Horowitz's acceptance speech, he was informed that the actual Best Picture winner was Moonlight (2016). During the onstage chaos that ensued, Beatty delivered a heartfelt explanation and apology for the snafu while undergoing good-natured ribbing from host Jimmy Kimmel.
After her break from acting and the memorable Oscars moment, Dunaway is now back in the saddle as an actress working more frequently in her 70s. Over the past year, she has appeared in three films, starring in The Bye Bye Man (2017), The Case for Christ (2017), and Inconceivable (2017), with more projects expected to be on the way. The icon also fronts Gucci's summer 2018 ad campaign for their Sylvie handbag and has a Broadway show scheduled for 2019.Did 6 nude movies, first at age 26 for "Bonnie and Clyde (1967)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1976- Actress
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Ellen Burstyn was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Correine Marie (Hamel) and John Austin Gillooly. She is of Irish, French/French-Canadian, Pennsylvania Dutch (German), and Native American ancestry.. She worked a number of jobs before she became an actress. At 14, she was a short-order cook at a lunch counter. After graduating from Detroit's Cass Technical High School, she went to Texas to model and then to New York as a showgirl on The Jackie Gleason Show (1952). From there, it was to Montreal as a nightclub dancer and then Broadway with her debut in "Fair Game (1957)". By 1963, she appeared on the TV series The Doctors (1963), but she gained notice for her role in Goodbye Charlie (1964). Ellen then took time off to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.
Her big break came when she was cast as the female lead in The Last Picture Show (1971). For this role, she received nominations for the Golden Globe and Academy Award. Next, she co-starred with Jack Nicholson in The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), giving a chilling performance. Then came The Exorcist (1973). She was again nominated for the Golden Globe and Academy Award. In 1974, she starred in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), for which performance she won the Oscar and BAFTA awards as Best Actress. For the Golden Globe, she was nominated but lost to Marsha Mason. The same year, she made history by winning a Tony Award for the Broadway play "Same Time, Next Year". She won praise and award nominations for her performances in the film versions of Same Time, Next Year (1978) and Resurrection (1980).
In "Resurrection", she played a woman with the power to heal. A succession of TV movies resulting in two Emmy nominations kept her going as did the series The Ellen Burstyn Show (1986). The TV movies continued through the 1990s. Also in the 1990s, she was cast in the supporting role in such movies as The Cemetery Club (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), The Baby-Sitters Club (1995) and The Spitfire Grill (1996). In addition to her acting, She was the first woman president of Actor's Equity (1982-85).Did 4 nude movies, first at age 37 for "Tropic of Cancer (1970)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1974- Actress
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Few in modern British history have come as far or achieved as much from humble beginnings as Glenda Jackson did. From acclaimed actress to respected MP (Member of Parliament), she was known for her high intelligence and meticulous approach to her work. She was born to a working-class household in Birkenhead, where her father was a bricklayer and her mother was a cleaning lady. When she was very young, her father was recruited into the Navy, where he worked aboard a minesweeper. She graduated from school at 16 and worked for a while in a pharmacy. However, she found this boring and dead-end and wanted better for herself. Her life changed forever when she was accepted into the prestigious Royal Acadamy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 18. Her work impressed all who observed it. At age 22, she married Roy Hodges.
Her first work came on the stage, where she won a role in an adaptation of "Separate Tables", and made a positive impression on critics and audiences alike. This led to film roles, modest at first, but she approached them with great determination. She first came to the public's notice when she won a supporting role in the controversial film Marat/Sade (1967), and is acknowledged to have stolen the show. She quickly became a member of Britain's A-List. Her first starring role came in the offbeat drama Negatives (1968), in which she out-shone the oddball material. The following year, controversial director Ken Russell gave her a starring role in his adaptation of the 1920s romance Women in Love (1969), in which she co-starred with Oliver Reed. The film was a major success, and Jackson's performance won her an Academy Award for Best Actress. In the process, she became an international celebrity, known world-wide, yet she didn't place as much value on the status and fame as most do. She did, however, become a major admirer of Russell (who had great admiration for her in return) and acted in more of his films. She starred in the controversial The Music Lovers (1971), although it required her to do a nude scene, something that made her very uncomfortable. The film was not a success, but she agreed to do a cameo appearance in his next film, The Boy Friend (1971). Although her role as an obnoxious actress was very small, she once again performed with great aplomb.
1971 turned out to be a key year for her. She took a risk by appearing in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), as a divorced businesswoman in a dead-end affair with a shallow bisexual artist, but the film turned out to be another major success. She accepted the starring role in the British Broadcasting Corporation's much anticipated biography of Queen Elizabeth I, and her performance in the finished film, Elizabeth R (1971), was praised not only by critics and fans, but is cited by historians as the most accurate portrayal of the beloved former queen ever seen. The same year, she successfully played the role of Queen Elizabeth I again in the historical drama Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). That same year, she appeared in the popular comedy series The Morecambe & Wise Show (1968) in a skit as Queen Cleopatra, which is considered on of the funniest TV skits in British television, and also proof that she could do comedy just as well as costume melodrama. One who saw and raved about her performance was director Melvin Frank, who proceeded to cast her in the romantic comedy A Touch of Class (1973), co-starring George Segal. The two stars had a chemistry which brought out the best in each other, and the film was not only a major hit in both the United States and Great Britain, but won her a second Academy Award. She continued to impress by refusing obvious commercial roles and seeking out serious artistic work. She gave strong performances in The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) and The Incredible Sarah (1976), in which she portrayed the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt. However, some of her films didn't register with the public, like The Triple Echo (1972), The Maids (1975), and Nasty Habits (1977). In addition, her marriage fell apart in 1976. But her career remained at the top and in 1978 she was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire. That year, she made a comeback in the comedy House Calls (1978), co-starring Walter Matthau. The success of this film which led to a popular television spin-off in the United States the following year. In 1979, she and Segal re-teamed in Lost and Found (1979), but they were unable to overcome the routine script. She again co-starred with Oliver Reed in The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978), but the film was another disappointment.
During the 1980s, she appeared in Hopscotch (1980) also co-starring Walter Matthau, and HealtH (1980) with Lauren Bacall, with disappointing results, although Jackson herself was never blamed. Her performance in the TV biography Sakharov (1984), in which she played Yelena Bonner, devoted wife of imprisoned Russian nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov opposite Jason Robards, won rave reviews. However, the next film Turtle Diary (1985), was only a modest success, and the ensemble comedy Beyond Therapy (1987) was a critical and box office disaster and Jackson herself got some of the worst reviews of her career.
As the 1980s ended, Jackson continued to act, but became more focused on public affairs. She grew up in a household that was staunchly supportive of the Labour Party. She had disliked the policies of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, even though she admired some of her personal attributes, and strongly disapproved of Thatcher's successor, John Major. She was unhappy with the direction of British government policies, and in 1992 ran for Parliament. Although running in an area (Hampstead and Highgate) which was not heavily supportive of her party, she won by a slim margin and immediately became its most famous newly elective member. However, those who expected that she would rest on her laurels and fame were mistaken. She immediately took an interest in transportation issues, and in 1997 was appointed Junior Transportation Minister by Prime Minister Tony Blair. However, she was critical of some of Blair's policies and is considered an inter-party opponent of Blair's moderate faction. She was considered a traditional Labour Party activist, but is not affiliated with the faction known as The Looney Left. In 2000, she ran for Mayor of London, but lost the Labour nomination to fellow MP Frank Dobson, an ally of Blair, who then lost the election to an independent candidate, Ken Livingstone.
In 2005, she ran again and won the nomination, but lost to Livingstone, winning 38% of the vote. When Blair announced he would not seek reelection as Prime Minister in 2006, Jackson's name was mentioned as a possible successor, although she didn't encourage this speculation. In 2010, she sought reelection to parliament and was almost defeated, winning by only 42 votes.
In 2013, she responded to the death of Margaret Thatcher by strongly denouncing her policies, which was condemned by many as graceless. In 2015, elections for parliament were called again but she didn't seek reelection. She was succeeded in Parliament by Christopher Philp, a Conservative Party member who had been Jackson's opponent in 2010.Did 5 nude movies, first at age 32 for "Negatives (1968)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1971- Actress
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Liza Minnelli was born on March 12, 1946, the daughter of Judy Garland and movie director Vincente Minnelli. She was practically raised at MGM studios while her parents worked long hours there and she made her film debut at 14 months of age in the movie In the Good Old Summertime (1949). Her parents divorced in 1951 and, in 1952, her mother married Sidney Luft, with sister Lorna Luft and brother Joey Luft subsequently being born. Her father, Vincente Minnelli, later married Georgette Magnani, mother of her half-sister Christiane Nina "Tina Nina" Minnelli.
At 16, Liza was on her own in New York City, struggling to begin her career in show business. Her first recognition came for the play "Best Foot Forward" which ran for seven months in 1963. The following year, Judy invited Liza to appear at a show with her at the London Palladium. This show sold out immediately and a second night was added to it. Liza's performance in London was a huge turning point in both her career and her relationship with her mother. The audience absolutely loved Liza and Judy realized that Liza was now an adult with her own career. It was at the Palladium where Liza met her first husband, Peter Allen, a friend of Judy's.
Liza won a Tony award at age 19 and was nominated for her first Academy Award at age 23 for the role of Pookie Adams in The Sterile Cuckoo (1969). Other dramatic roles followed and, in 1972, she won an Oscar for her performance as Sally Bowles in the movie Cabaret (1972). The 1970s were a busy time for Liza. She worked steadily in film, stage, and music. She and her good friend Halston were regulars at Studio 54, the trendiest disco club in the world. Marriages to filmmaker Jack Haley Jr. and Mark Gero, a sculptor who earned his living in the theater, followed. Each marriage ended in divorce.
Over the past years, her career has leaned more towards stage performances and she has a long list of musical albums to which she continues to add. She teamed with Frank Sinatra in his "Duets" CD, and Sammy Davis Jr. joined them for a series of concerts and TV shows that were extremely well-received.
She has had to deal with tabloid stories of drug abuse and ill-health and has had a number of high profile stays at drug-rehabilitation clinics. Her hectic schedule may have slowed down in recent years, but she still has a large following of immensely loyal fans who continue to cheer her on.Did 1 nude movie, at age 24 for "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1973- Actress
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One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor Robert Stephens and to playwright Beverley Cross. Her marriage to Stephens ended in divorce in 1974. She was married to Cross until his death in 1999. She had two sons with Stephens, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens who are also actors.
Maggie Smith's career began at the Oxford Playhouse in the 1950s. She made her film debut in 1956 as one of the party guests in Child in the House (1956). She has since performed in over sixty films and television series with some of the most prominent actors and actresses in the world. These include: Othello (1965) with Laurence Olivier, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), California Suite (1978) with Michael Caine and Jane Fonda, A Room with a View (1985), Richard III (1995) with Ian McKellen and Jim Broadbent, Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini (1999) with Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Cher and Gosford Park (2001) with Kristin Scott Thomas and Clive Owen, directed by Robert Altman. Maggie Smith has also been nominated for an Oscar six times and won twice, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978).
Smith later appeared in the very successful 'Harry Potter' franchise as the formidable Professor McGonagall as well as in Julian Fellowes' ITV drama series, Downton Abbey (2010) (2010-2011) as the Dowager Countess of Grantham.Did 2 nude movies, first at age 43 for "California Suite (1978)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1970- Music Artist
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Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards, as well as the Kennedy Center Honor, American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement honor and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Chaplin Award.
She was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1942 to Diana Kind (née Ida Rosen), a singer turned school secretary, and Emanuel Streisand, a high school teacher. Her father died when she was 15 months old. She has a brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister, Roslyn Kind, from their mother's remarriage. As a child she attended the Beis Yakov Jewish School in Brooklyn. She was raised in a middle-class family and grew up dreaming of becoming an actress (or even an actress / conductor, as she happily described her teenage years at one of her concerts).
After a period as a nightclub singer and off-Broadway performer in New York City she began to attract interest and a fan base, thanks to her original and powerful vocal talent. She debuted on Broadway in the 1962 musical comedy "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" by Harold Rome, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Drama Critics Poll award. The following year she reached great commercial success with her first Columbia Records solo releases, "The Barbra Streisand Album" (multiple Grammy winner, including "Best Album of the Year") and "The Second Barbra Streisand Album" (her first RIAA Gold Album); these albums, mostly devoted to composer Harold Arlen, brought her critical praise and, most of all, public acclaim all over the US. In 1964 she had another smash Broadway hit when she portrayed legendary Broadway star Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill; the show's main song, "People", became her first hit single and she appeared on the cover of Time magazine. After many TV appearances as a guest on various music and variety shows (such as an episode of The Judy Garland Show (1963), for which she was nominated for an Emmy), she signed an exclusive contract with CBS for a series of annual TV specials. My Name Is Barbra (1965) (which won an Emmy) and Color Me Barbra (1966) were extremely successful.
After a brief London stage period and the birth of her son Jason Gould (with then-husband Elliott Gould), in summer 1967 she gave a memorable free concert in New York City, "A Happening in Central Park", that was filmed and later broadcast (in an edited version) as a TV special; then she flew to Hollywood for her first movie, Funny Girl (1968), a filming of her stage success. The picture, directed by William Wyler, opened in 1968 and became a hit in the US and abroad, making her an international "superstar" and multiple award winner, including the Best Actress Oscar. After a series of screen musicals, such as Gene Kelly's Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Vincente Minnelli's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), she wanted to try comedies, resulting in such films as The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and What's Up, Doc? (1972). She turned to dramas and turned out Up the Sandbox (1972) and the classic The Way We Were (1973), directed by Sydney Pollack and co-starring Robert Redford. The song "The Way We Were" (written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman) became one of her biggest hits and most memorable and famous songs.
She returned to TV for a new special conceived as a musical journey covering many world musical styles, Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments (1973), then returned (for contractual reasons) to her Fanny Brice role in a sequel to her hit "Funny Girl" film, Funny Lady (1975), and the next year turned out one of her most personal film projects, A Star Is Born (1976), one of the biggest hits of the year for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress and her second Oscar, for the song "Evergreen". Always extremely busy on the discography side, averaging one album a year throughout the '70s and '80s, she had a string of successful singles and albums, such as "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (duet with Neil Diamond), "Enough is Enough" (with Donna Summer), "The Main Event" (from her film The Main Event (1979) with her friend Ryan O'Neal) and the album "Guilty", written for her by The Bee Gees' Barry Gibb, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
She debuted as a director with the musical drama Yentl (1983), in which she also portrayed a Jewish girl who is forced to pass herself off as a man to pursue her dreams. The movie received generally positive reviews and the beautiful score by Michel Legrand and lyricists Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman stands up as one of Streisand's finest musical works. The film received several Oscar nominations, winning in two categories, but she was not nominated as Best Director, which disappointed both her and her fans, many of whom consider this the Academy's biggest "snub".
In 1985 her album "The Broadway Album" was an unexpected runaway success, winning a Grammy Award and helping to introduce a new generation to the world of American musical theater. In 1986 she performed in a memorable concert, after 19 years of stage silence, "One Voice". She returned to the screen in Nuts (1987), a drama directed by Martin Ritt, in the role of a prostitute accused of murder who fights to avoid being labeled "insane" at her trial. In 1991 she appeared in The Prince of Tides (1991), which many consider to be the pinnacle of her screen career, playing a psychiatrist who tries to help a man (Nick Nolte) to find the pieces of his past life. The film received seven Oscar nominations (but again NOT for Best Directing), but she did receive a nomination from the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Best Director. In 1994 she returned to the stage after 27 years for a series of sold-out concerts (for the televised version of one of these, she won another Emmy).
In the 1990s she broke several personal records: with two #1 albums ("Back to Broadway" in 1993 and "Higher Ground" in 1997) and became the only artist to achieve a #1 album on the Billboard charts in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (she extended this record into the 21st century in 2009 with the jazz album "Love is the Answer"). In 1996 she starred in her third picture as director, The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), with Jeff Bridges and Lauren Bacall. The film had a "the girl got the guy" ending, and the same happened to her in real life--the next year she married well known TV actor James Brolin.
In 2000 she focused her career again on concerts ("Timeless") and in 2006-07 with a European tour. She made only two more films--a supporting role as a sex therapist mother in the Ben Stiller comedy Meet the Fockers (2004) and its sequel, Little Fockers (2010), alongside Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. She published a book, "Passion for Design", in 2010 and celebrated her friendship with the Bergmans with an entire album of their songs, "What Matters Most" (2011), that debuted in the top 10.
After a long break from filming, she returned in a starring role for the 2012 holiday season with The Guilt Trip (2012), a mother/son picture co-starring Seth Rogen and directed by Anne Fletcher, and is working on putting together a film version of the well-known Jule Styne musical "Gypsy". In almost 50 years of career, Streisand has contributed to the show business industry in a personal and unique way, collecting a multi-generational fan base; she has a powerful and recognize vocal range, and a raucous and often self-deprecating sense of humor, which doesn't prevent her from showing the serious and dramatic sides of her personality. Her strong political belief in social justice infuses her professional career and personal life, and she makes no bones about what she believes; her willingness to put her money where her mouth is has resulted in some truly vicious attacks by many who hold opposite political views, but that hasn't stopped her from acting on her beliefs. She has been honored with the Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign, an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Brandeis University in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2013 and the bestowing by the government of France the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. She supports many humanitarian causes through the Streisand Foundation and has been a dedicated environmentalist for many years; she endowed a chair in environmental studies in 1987 and donated her 24-acre estate to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. In addition, she was the lead founder for the Clinton Climate Change Initiative. This effort brought together a consortium of major cities around the world to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. She is a leading spokesperson and fund-raiser for social and political causes close to her heart and has often dedicated proceeds from her live concert performances to benefit programs she supports.Did 2 nude movies, first at age 28 for "The Owl and the Pussycat (1970)". One of only six who won the Oscar befóre, in 1969- Actress
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Julie Christie, the British movie legend whom Al Pacino called "the most poetic of all actresses," was born in Chabua, Assam, India, on April 14, 1940, the daughter of a tea planter and his Welsh wife Rosemary, who was a painter. The young Christie grew up on her father's plantation before being sent to England for her education. Finishing her studies in Paris, where she had moved to improve her French with an eye to possibly becoming a linguist (she is fluent in French and Italian), the teenager became enamored of the freedom of the Continent. She also was smitten by the bohemian life of artists and planned on becoming an artist before she enrolled in London's Central School of Speech Training. She made her debut as a professional in 1957 as a member of the Frinton Repertory of Essex.
Christie was not fond of the stage, even though it allowed her to travel, including a professional gig in the United States. Her true métier as an actress was film, and she made her debut in the science-fiction television series A for Andromeda (1961) in 1961. Her first film was a girlfriend part in the Ealing-like comedy Crooks Anonymous (1962), which was followed up by a larger ingénue role in another comedy, The Fast Lady (1962). The producers of the James Bond series were sufficiently intrigued by the young actress to consider her for the role that subsequently went to Ursula Andress in Dr. No (1962), but dropped the idea because she was not busty enough.
Christie first worked with the man who would kick her career into high gear, director John Schlesinger, when he choose her as a replacement for the actress originally cast in Billy Liar (1963). Christie's turn in the film as the free-wheeling Liz was a stunner, and she had her first taste of becoming a symbol if not icon of the new British cinema. Her screen presence was such that the great John Ford cast her as the young prostitute in Young Cassidy (1965). Charlton Heston wanted her for his film The War Lord (1965), but the studio refused her salary demands.
Although Amercan magazines portrayed Christie as a "newcomer" when she made her breakthrough to super-stardom in Schlesinger's seminal Swinging Sixties film Darling (1965), she actually had considerable work under her professional belt and was in the process of a artistic quickening. Schlesinger called on Christie, whom he adored, to play the role of mode Diana Scott when the casting of Shirley MacLaine fell through. (MacLaine was the sister of the man who would become Christie's long-time paramour in the late 1960s and early '70s, Warren Beatty, whom some, like actor Rod Steiger, believe she gave up her career for. Her "Dr. Zhivago" co-star, Steiger -- a keen student of acting -- regretted that Christie did not give more of herself to her craft.)
As played by Christie, Diana is an amoral social butterfly who undergoes a metamorphosis from immature sex kitten to jaded socialite. For her complex performance, Christie won raves, including the Best Actress Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the British Film Academy. She had arrived, especially as she had followed up "Darling" with the role of Lara in two-time Academy Award-winning director David Lean's adaptation of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago (1965), one of the all-time box-office champs.
Christie was now a superstar who commanded a price of $400,000 per picture, a fact ruefully noted in Charlton Heston's diary (his studio had balked at paying her then-fee of $35,000). More interested in film as an art form than in consolidating her movie stardom, Christie followed up "Zhivago" with a dual role in Fahrenheit 451 (1966) for director François Truffaut, a director she admired. The film was hurt by the director's lack of English and by friction between Truffaut and Christie's male co-star Oskar Werner, who had replaced the the more-appropriate-for-the-role Terence Stamp. Stamp and Christie had been lovers before she had become famous, and he was unsure he could act with her, due to his own ego problems. On his part, Werner resented the attention the smitten Truffaut gave Christie. The film is an interesting failure.
Stamp overcame those ego problems to sign on as her co-star in John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), which also featured two great English actors, Peter Finch and Alan Bates. It is a film that is far better remembered now than when it was received in 1967. The film and her performance as the Hardy heroine Bathsheba Everdene was lambasted by film critics, many of whom faulted Christie for being too "mod" and thus untrue to one of Hardy's classic tales of fate. Some said that her contemporary Vanessa Redgrave would have been a better choice as Bathsheba, but while it is true that Redgrave is a very fine actress, she lacked the sex appeal and star quality of Christie, which makes the story of three men in love with one woman more plausible, as a film.
Although no one then knew it, the period 1967-68 represented the high-water mark of Christie's career. Fatefully, like the Hardy heroine she had portrayed, she had met the man who transformed her life, undermining her pretensions to a career as a movie star in their seven-year-long love affair, the American actor Warren Beatty. Living his life was always far more important than being a star for Beatty, who viewed the movie star profession as a "treadmill leading to more treadmills" and who was wealthy enough after Bonnie and Clyde (1967) to not have to ever work again. Christie and Beatty had visited a working farm during the production of "Madding Crowd" and had been appalled by the industrial exploitation of the animals. Thereafter, animal rights became a very important subject to Christie. They were kindred souls who remain friends four decades after their affair ended in 1974.
Christie's last box-office hit in which she was the top-liner was Petulia (1968) for Richard Lester, a film that featured one of co-star George C. Scott's greatest performances, perfectly counter-balanced by Christie's portrayal of an "arch-kook" who was emblematic of the '60s. It is one of the major films of the decade, an underrated masterpiece. Despite the presence of the great George C. Scott and the excellent Shirley Knight, the film would not work without Julie Christie. There is frankly no other actress who could have filled the role, bringing that unique presence and the threat of danger that crackled around Christie's electric aura. At this point of her career, she was poised for greatness as a star, greatness as an actress.
And she walked away.
After meeting Beatty, Julie Christie essentially surrendered any aspirations to screen stardom, or at maintaining herself as a top-drawer working actress (success at the box office being a guarantee of the best parts, even in art films.) She turned down the lead in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), two parts that garnered Oscar nominations for the second choices, Jane Fonda and Geneviève Bujold. After shooting In Search of Gregory (1969), a critical and box office flop, to fulfill her contractual obligations, she spent her time with Beatty in Calfiornia, renting a beach house at Malibu. She did return to form in Joseph Losey's The Go-Between (1971), a fine picture with a script by the great Harold Pinter, and she won another Oscar nomination as the whore-house proprietor in Robert Altman's minor classic McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) that she made with her lover Beatty. However, like Beatty himself, she did not seek steady work, which can be professional suicide for an actor who wants to maintain a standing in the first rank of movie stars.
At the same time, Julie Christie turned down the role of the Russian Empress in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), another film that won the second-choice (Janet Suzman) a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Two years later, she appeared in the landmark mystery-horror film Don't Look Now (1973), but that likely was as a favor to the director, Nicolas Roeg, who had been her cinematographer on "Fahrenheit 451," "Far From the Madding Crowd" and "Petulia." In the mid '70s, her affair with Beatty came to an end, but the two remained close friends and worked together in Shampoo (1975) (which she regretted due to its depiction of women) and Heaven Can Wait (1978).
Christie was still enough of a star, due to sheer magnetism rather than her own pull at the box-office, to be offered $1 million to play the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis character in The Greek Tycoon (1978) (a part eventually played by Jacqueline Bisset to no great acclaim). She signed for but was forced to drop out of the lead in Agatha (1979) (which was filled by Vanessa Redgrave) after she broke a wrist roller-skating (a particularly southern Californian fate!). She then signed for the female lead in American Gigolo (1980) when Richard Gere was originally attached to the picture, but dropped out when John Travolta muscled his way into the lead after making twin box-office killings as disco king Tony Manera in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and greaser Danny Zuko in Grease (1978). Christie could never have co-starred with such a camp figure of dubious talent. When Travolta himself dropped out and Gere was subbed back in, it was too late for Christe to reconsider, as the part already had been filled by model-actress Lauren Hutton. It would take 15 years for Christie and Gere to work together.
Finally, the end of the American phase of her movie career was realized when Christie turned down the part of Louise Bryant in Reds (1981), a part written by Warren Beatty with her in mind, as she felt an American should play the role. (Beatty's latest lover, Diane Keaton, played the part and won a Best Actress Oscar nomination.) Still, she remained a part of the film, Beatty's long-gestated labor of love, as it is dedicated to "Jules."
Julie Christie moved back to the UK and become the UK's answer to Jane Fonda, campaigning for various social and political causes, including animal rights and nuclear disarmament. The parts she did take were primarily driven by her social consciousness, such as appearing in Sally Potter's first feature-length film, The Gold Diggers (1983) which was not a remake of the old Avery Hopwood's old warhorse but a feminist parable made entirely by women who all shared the same pay scale. Roles in The Return of the Soldier (1982) with Alan Bates and Glenda Jackson and Merchant-Ivory's Heat and Dust (1983) seemed to herald a return to form, but Christie -- as befits such a symbol of the freedom and lack of conformity of the '60s -- decided to do it her way. She did not go "careering," even though her unique talent and beauty was still very much in demand by filmmakers.
At this point, Christie's movie career went into eclipse. Once again, she was particularly choosy about her work, so much so that many came to see her, essentially, as retired. A career renaissance came in the mid-1990s with her turn as Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh's ambitious if not wholly successful Hamlet (1996). As Christie said at the time, she didn't feel she could turn Branagh down as he was a national treasure. But the best was yet to come: her turn as the faded movie star married to handyman Nick Nolte and romanced by a younger man in Afterglow (1997), which brought her rave notices. She received her third Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, and showed up at the awards as radiant and uniquely beautiful as ever. Ever the iconoclast, she was visibly relieved, upon the announcement of the award, to learn that she had lost!
Christie lived with left-wing investigative journalist Duncan Campbell (a Manchester Guardian columnist) since 1979, first in Wales, then in Ojai, California, and now in London's East End, before marrying in January 2008. In addition to her film work, she has narrated many books-on-tape. In 1995, she made a triumphant return to the stage in a London revival of Harold Pinter's "Old Times", which garnered her superb reviews.
In the decade since "Afterglow," she has worked steadily on film in supporting roles. Christie -- an actress who eschewed vulgar stardom -- proved to be an inspiration to her co-star Sarah Polley, the remarkably talented Canadian actress with a leftist political bent who also abhors Hollywood. Of her co-star in No Such Thing (2001) and The Secret Life of Words (2005), Polley says that Christie is uniquely aware of her commodification by the movie industry and the mass media during the 1960s. Not wanting to be reduced to a product, she had rebelled and had assumed control of her life and career. Her attitude makes her one of Polley's heroes, who calls her one of her surrogate mothers. (Polley lost her own mother when she was 11 years old.)
Both Christie and Polley are rebels. Sarah Polley had walked off the set of the big-budget movie that was forecast as her ticket to Hollywood stardom, Almost Famous (2000), to have a different sort of life and career. She returned to her native Canada to appear in the low-budget indie The Law of Enclosures (2000), a prescient art film in that director John Greyson offset the drama with a background of a perpetual Gulf War three years before George W. Bush invaded Iraq, touching off the second-longest war in U.S. history. Taking a hiatus from acting, Polley went to Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre to learn to direct, and direct she has, making well-regarded shorts before launching her feature film debut, Away from Her (2006), which was shot and completed in 2006 but held for release until 2007 by its distributor.
Polley, who had longed to be a writer since she was a child actress on the set of the quaint family show Avonlea (1990) wrote the screenplay for her adaptation of Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" with only one actress in mind: Julie Christie. Polley had first read the short story on a flight back from Iceland, where she had made "No Such Thing" with Christie, and as she read, it was Julie whom she pictured as Fiona, the wife of a one-time philandering husband, who has become afflicted with Alzheimer's disease and seeks to save her hubby the pain of looking after her by checking herself into a home.
After finishing the screenplay, it took months to get Christie to commit to making the film. Julie turned her down after reading the script and pondering it for a couple of months, saying "No" even though she liked the script. Polley then had to "twist her arm" for another couple of months. But alas, Julie has a weakness for national treasures: Just like with Branagh a decade ago, the legendary Julie Christie could not deny the Great White North's Sarah Polley, and commit she did. Polley then found out why Christie is so reticent about making movies:
"She gives all of herself to what she does. Once she said yes, she was more committed than anybody."
According to David Germain, a cinema journalist who interviewed Christie for the Associated Press, "Polley and Christie share a desire to do interesting, unusual work, which generally means staying away from Hollywood.
"'It's been a kind of greed and a kind of egotism, but it's not necessarily wanting to avoid the Hollywood thing, but in fact, it incorporates wanting to avoid the Hollywood thing, because the Hollywood thing is so inevitably not original,' Christie said. 'It's avoiding non-originality, so that means you're really down to a very small choice.'"
The collaboration between the two rebels yielded a small gem of a film. Lions Gate Films was so impressed, it purchased the American distribution rights to the film in 2006, then withheld it until the following year to build up momentum for the awards season.
Julie Christie's performance in "Away From Her" is superb, and already has garnered her the National Board of Review's Best Actress Award. She will likely receive her fourth Academy Award nomination, and quite possibly her second Oscar, for her unforgettable performance, a labor of love she did for a friend.
We, the Julie Christie fans who have waited decades for the handful of films made by the numinous star: Would we have wanted it any other way? We are the Red Sox fans of the movies, once again rewarded with a world-class masterpiece by our heroine. Perhaps, like all human beings, we want more, but we have learned over the last thirty-five years to be content with the diamonds that are Julie's leading performances that she gives just once a decade, content to feel that these are a surfeit of riches, our surfeit of riches, so great is their luminescence.Did 5 nude movies, first at age 24 for "Darling (1965)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1966- Actress
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Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on October 1, 1935, in England. Her mother, Barbara Ward (Morris), and stepfather, both vaudeville performers, discovered her freakish but undeniably lovely four-octave singing voice and immediately got her a singing career. She performed in music halls throughout her childhood and teens, and at age 20, she launched her stage career in a London Palladium production of "Cinderella".
Andrews came to Broadway in 1954 with "The Boy Friend", and became a bona fide star two years later in 1956, in the role of Eliza Doolittle in the unprecedented hit "My Fair Lady". Her star status continued in 1957, when she starred in the TV-production of Cinderella (1957) and through 1960, when she played "Guenevere" in "Camelot".
In 1963, Walt Disney asked Andrews if she would like to star in his upcoming production, a lavish musical fantasy that combined live-action and animation. She agreed on the condition if she didn't get the role of Doolittle in the pending film production of My Fair Lady (1964). After Audrey Hepburn was cast in My Fair Lady, Andrews made an auspicious film debut in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Andrews continued to work on Broadway, until the release of The Sound of Music (1965), the highest-grossing movie of its day and one of the highest-grossing of all time. She soon found that audiences identified her only with singing, sugary-sweet nannies and governesses, and were reluctant to accept her in dramatic roles in The Americanization of Emily (1964) and Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Torn Curtain (1966). In addition, the box-office showings of the musicals Julie subsequently made increasingly reflected the negative effects of the musical-film boom that she helped to create. Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) was for a time the most successful film Universal had released, but it still couldn't compete with Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music for worldwide acclaim and recognition. Star! (1968) and Darling Lili (1970) also bombed at the box office.
Fortunately, Andrews did not let this keep her down. She worked in nightclubs and hosted a TV variety series in the 1970s. In 1979, Andrews returned to the big screen, appearing in films directed by her husband Blake Edwards, with roles that were entirely different from anything she had been seen in before. Andrews starred in 10 (1979), S.O.B. (1981) and Victor/Victoria (1982), which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
She continued acting throughout the 1980s and 1990s in movies and TV, hosting several specials and starring in a short-lived sitcom. In 2001, she starred in The Princess Diaries (2001), alongside then-newcomer Anne Hathaway. The family film was one of the most successful G-Rated films of that year, and Andrews reprised her role as Queen Clarisse Renaldi in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). In recent years, Andrews appeared in Tooth Fairy (2010), as well as a number of voice roles in Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Enchanted (2007), Shrek Forever After (2010), and Despicable Me (2010).Did 3 nude movies, first at age 34 for "Darling Lili (1970)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1965- Actress
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Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome on September 20, 1934. Her father Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother Romilda Villani, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children (Sophia and her younger sister Maria Scicolone). Growing up in the slums of Pozzuoli during the second World War without any support from her father, she experienced great sadness in her childhood. Her life took an unexpected turn for the best when, at age 14, she entered into a beauty contest and placed as one of the finalists. It was here that Sophia caught the attention of film producer Carlo Ponti, some 22 years her senior, whom she later married. Perhaps he was the father figure she never experienced as a child. Under his guidance, Sophia was put under contract and appeared as an extra in ten films beginning with Le sei mogli di Barbablù (1950), before working her way up to supporting roles. In these early films, she was credited as "Sofia Lazzaro" because people joked her beauty could raise Lazzarus from the dead.
By her late teens, Sophia was playing lead roles in many Italian features such as La favorita (1952) and Aida (1953). In 1957, she embarked on a successful acting career in the United States, starring in Boy on a Dolphin (1957), Legend of the Lost (1957), and The Pride and the Passion (1957) that year. She had a short-lived but much-publicized fling with co-star Cary Grant, who was nearly 31 years her senior. She was only 22 while he was 53, and she rejected a marriage proposal from him. They were paired together a second time in the family-friendly romantic comedy Houseboat (1958). While under contract to Paramount, Sophia starred in Desire Under the Elms (1958), The Key (1958), The Black Orchid (1958), It Started in Naples (1960), Heller in Pink Tights (1960), A Breath of Scandal (1960), and The Millionairess (1960) before returning to Italy to star in Two Women (1960). The film was a period piece about a woman living in war-torn Italy who is raped while trying to protect her young daughter. Originally cast as the more glamorous child, Sophia fought against type and was re-cast as the mother, displaying a lack of vanity and proving herself as a genuine actress. This performance received international acclaim and was honored with an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Sophia remained a bona fide international movie star throughout the sixties and seventies, making films on both sides of the Atlantic, and starring opposite such leading men as Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, and Charlton Heston. Her English-language films included El Cid (1961), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Arabesque (1966), Man of La Mancha (1972), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). She gained wider respect with her Italian films, especially Marriage Italian Style (1964) and A Special Day (1977), both of which co-starred Marcello Mastroianni. During these years she received a second Oscar nomination and won five Golden Globe Awards.
From the eighties onward, Sophia's appearances on the big screen came few and far between. She preferred to spend the majority of her time raising sons Carlo Ponti Jr. (b. 1968) and Edoardo Ponti (b. 1973). Her only acting credits during the decade were five television films, beginning with Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (1980), a biopic in which she portrayed herself and her mother. She ventured into other areas of business and became the first actress to launch her own fragrance and design of eyewear. In 1982 she voluntarily spent nineteen days in jail for tax evasion.
In 1991 Sophia received an Honorary Academy Award for her body of work, and was declared "one of world cinema's greatest treasures." That same year, she experienced a terrible loss when her mother died of cancer. Her return to mainstream films in Ready to Wear (1994) was well-received, although the film as a whole was not. She followed this up with her biggest U.S. hit in years, the comedy Grumpier Old Men (1995), in which she played a sexy divorcée who seduces Walter Matthau. Over the next decade Sophia had plum roles in a few independent films like Soleil (1997), Between Strangers (2002) (directed by Edoardo), and Lives of the Saints (2004). Still beautiful at 72, she posed scantily-clad for the 2007 Pirelli Calendar. Sadly, that same year she mourned the death of her 94-year-old spouse, Carlo Ponti. In 2009, after far too much time away from film, she appeared in the musical Nine (2009) opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. These days Sophia is based in Switzerland but frequently travels to the states to spend time with her sons and their families (Eduardo is married to actress Sasha Alexander). Sophia Loren remains one of the most beloved and recognizable figures in the international film world.Did 3 nude movies, first at age 16 (YOUNGEST) for "Era lui... sí! sí! (1951)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1961- Actress
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Susan Hayward was born Edythe Marrener in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1917. Her father was a transportation worker, and Susan lived a fairly comfortable life as a child, but the precocious little redhead had no idea of the life that awaited her. She attended public school in Brooklyn, where she graduated from a commercial high school that was intended to give students a marketable skill. She had planned on becoming a secretary, but her plans changed. She started doing some modeling work for photographers in the NYC area. By 1937, her beauty in full bloom, she went to Hollywood when the nationwide search was on for someone to play the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1939). Although she--along with several hundred other aspiring Scarletts--lost out to Vivien Leigh, Susan was to carve her own signature in Hollywood circles. In 1937 she got a bit part in Hollywood Hotel (1937). The bit parts continued all through 1938, with Susan playing, among other things, a coed, a telephone operator and an aspiring actress. She wasn't happy with these bit parts, but she also realized she had to "pay her dues". In 1939 she finally landed a part with substance, playing Isobel Rivers in the hit action film Beau Geste (1939). In 1941 she played Millie Perkins in the offbeat thriller Among the Living (1941). This quirky little film showed Hollywood Susan's considerable dramatic qualities for the first time. She then played a Southern belle in Cecil B. DeMille's Reap the Wild Wind (1942), one of the director's bigger successes, and once again showed her mettle as an actress. Following that movie she starred with Paulette Goddard and Fred MacMurray in The Forest Rangers (1942), playing tough gal Tana Mason. Although such films as Jack London (1943), And Now Tomorrow (1944) and Deadline at Dawn (1946) continued to showcase her talent, she still hadn't gotten the meaty role she craved. In 1947, however, she did, and received the first of five Academy Award nominations, this one for her portrayal of Angelica Evans in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947). She played the part to the hilt and many thought she would take home the Oscar, but she lost out to Loretta Young for The Farmer's Daughter (1947). In 1949 Susan was nominated again for My Foolish Heart (1949) and again was up against stiff competition, but once more her hopes were dashed when Olivia de Havilland won for The Heiress (1949). Now, however, with two Oscar nominations under her belt, Susan was a force to be reckoned with. Good scripts finally started to come her way and she chose carefully because she wanted to appear in good quality productions. Her caution paid off, as she garnered yet a third nomination in 1953 for With a Song in My Heart (1952). Later that year she starred as Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson in The President's Lady (1953). She was superb as Andrew Jackson's embittered wife, who dies before he was able to take office as President of the United States. After her fourth Academy Award nomination for I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), Susan began to wonder if she would ever take home the coveted gold statue. She didn't have much longer to wait, though. In 1958 she gave the performance of her lifetime as real-life California killer Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958), who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the gas chamber. Susan was absolutely riveting in her portrayal of the doomed woman. Many film buffs consider it to be one of the finest performances of all time, and this time she was not only nominated for Best Actress, but won. After that role she appeared in about one movie a year. In 1972 she made her last theatrical film, The Revengers (1972). She had been diagnosed with cancer, and the disease finally claimed her life on March 14, 1975, in Hollywood. She was 57.After a hiathus of 20(!) years, Hayward was the 2nd Oscarwinner to go nude in just one movie, at age 35 for "With a Song in My Heart (1952)". Won Oscar áfter, in 1958- Actress
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One of the brightest film stars to grace the screen was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin on September 13, 1903, in Saint Mandé, France where her father owned a bakery at 57, rue de la République (now Avenue Général de Gaulle). The family moved to the United States when she was three. As Claudette grew up, she wanted nothing more than to play to Broadway audiences (in those days, any actress or actor worth their salt went for Broadway, not Hollywood). After her formal education ended, she enrolled in the Art Students League, where she paid for her dramatic training by working in a dress shop. She made her Broadway debut in 1923 in the stage production of "The Wild Wescotts". It was during this event that she adopted the name Claudette Colbert.
When the Great Depression shut down most of the theaters, Claudette decided to make a go of it in films. Her first film was called For the Love of Mike (1927). Unfortunately, it was a box-office disaster. She wasn't real keen on the film industry, but with an extreme scarcity in theatrical roles, she had no choice but to remain. In 1929 she starred as Joyce Roamer in The Lady Lies (1929). The film was a success and later that year she had another hit entitled The Hole in the Wall (1929). In 1930 she starred opposite Fredric March in Manslaughter (1930), which was a remake of the silent version of eight years earlier. A year after that Claudette was again paired in a film with March, Honor Among Lovers (1931). It fared well at the box-office, probably only because it was the kind of film that catered to women who enjoyed magazine fiction romantic stories. In 1932 Claudette played the evil Poppeia in Cecil B. DeMille's last great work, The Sign of the Cross (1932), and once again was cast with March. Later the same year she was paired with Jimmy Durante in The Phantom President (1932). By now Claudette's name symbolized good movies and she, along with March, pulled crowds into the theaters with the acclaimed Tonight Is Ours (1933).
The next year started a little on the slow side with the release of Four Frightened People (1934), where Claudette and her co-stars were at odds with the dreaded bubonic plague on board a ship. However, the next two films were real gems for this young actress. First up, Claudette was charming and radiant in Cecil B. DeMille's spectacular Cleopatra (1934). It wasn't one of DeMille's finest by any means, but it was a financial success and showcased Claudette as never before. However, it was as Ellie Andrews, in the now famous It Happened One Night (1934), that ensured she would be forever immortalized. Paired with Clark Gable, the madcap comedy was a mega-hit all across the country. It also resulted in Claudette being nominated for and winning the Oscar that year for Best Actress. IN 1935 she was nominated again for Private Worlds (1935), where she played Dr. Jane Everest, on the staff at a mental institution. The performance was exquisite. Films such as The Gilded Lily (1935), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and No Time for Love (1943) kept fans coming to the theaters and the movie moguls happy. Claudette was a sure drawing card for virtually any film she was in. In 1944 she starred as Anne Hilton in Since You Went Away (1944). Again, although she didn't win, Claudette picked up her third nomination for Best Actress.
By the late 1940s and early 1950s she was not only seen on the screen but the infant medium of television, where she appeared in a number of programs. However, her drawing power was fading somewhat as new stars replaced the older ones. In 1955 she filmed the western Texas Lady (1955) and wasn't seen on the screen again until Parrish (1961). It was her final silver screen performance. Her final appearance before the cameras was in a TV movie, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987). She did, however, remain on the stage where she had returned in 1956, her first love. After a series of strokes, Claudette divided her time between New York and Barbados. On July 30, 1996, Claudette died in Speightstown, Barbados. She was 92.Was nude in 1 movie, at age 29 for "The Sign of the Cross (1932)" (HISTORIC FIRST!). Won the Oscar áfter, in 1934