Katharine Ross | |
|---|---|
 Ross in 1966 | |
| Born | Katharine Juliet Ross (1940-01-29)January 29, 1940 (age 86) Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1962–2019 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
Katharine Juliet Ross (born January 29, 1940)[a] is a retired American actress. Her accolades include anAcademy Award nomination, aBAFTA Award, and twoGolden Globe Awards.
An alumna of theActor's Workshop, Ross made her television debut in 1962. She made her film debut in the Civil War dramaShenandoah (1965), and had supporting parts inMister Buddwing andThe Singing Nun (both 1966) before being cast inCurtis Harrington'sGames (1967), a thriller co-starringJames Caan andSimone Signoret. At Signoret's recommendation, Ross was cast as Elaine Robinson inMike Nichols' comedy-dramaThe Graduate (1967), which saw her receive significant critical acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination forBest Supporting Actress, a BAFTA nomination, and Golden Globe win forNew Star of the Year. She garnered further acclaim for her roles in two 1969 Westerns:Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid andTell Them Willie Boy Is Here, for both of which she won the BAFTA Award forBest Actress.[4]
In the 1970s, Ross had a leading role in the horror filmThe Stepford Wives (1975), for which she won theSaturn Award for Best Actress, and won her second Golden Globe award for her performance in the dramaVoyage of the Damned (1976). Her other roles during this period included the disaster filmThe Swarm (1978), the supernatural horror filmThe Legacy (1978), and the science-fiction filmThe Final Countdown (1980). Ross spent the majority of the 1980s appearing in a number of made-for-TV films, includingMurder in Texas (1981) andThe Shadow Riders (1982), and later starred on the network seriesThe Colbys from 1985 to 1987.[5][6][7]
Ross spent the majority of the 1990s in semiretirement, although she returned to film with a supporting part inRichard Kelly'scult filmDonnie Darko (2001). In 2016, she provided a voice role for the animated comedy seriesAmerican Dad!, and the following year starred in the comedy-dramaThe Hero (2017), opposite her husband,Sam Elliott.[8]
Ross was born in Los Angeles on January 29, 1940,[10][11] when her father, Dudley Tyng Ross (1906–1991),[12] was alieutenant in theUnited States Navy.[10][13] A native ofSonyea, New York, he had also worked for theAssociated Press.[14][15] Ross's mother, the former Katharine Elizabeth Washburn[16][17] (née Hall;[18] 1909–1993),[19] was born inIndianapolis and later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.[20][21] She married Ross's father there in 1937.[15] The family resided for a time inWashington, D.C., before moving toWalnut Creek, California.[22][23]
Ross was a keen horse rider in her youth[24] and was friends with rodeo riderCasey Tibbs.[25] She graduated fromLas Lomas High School in 1957.[9] Ross studied for one year atSanta Rosa Junior College, where she was introduced to acting via a production ofThe King and I.[26] While attending SRJC, she met her first husband, future actorJoel Fabiani.[27] Ross transferred toDiablo Valley College in 1958. Eventually moving to San Francisco, she joined theActor's Workshop and was with them for three years.[27] For one role inJean Genet'sThe Balcony, she appeared nude on stage.[27]
In 1964, Ross was cast byJohn Houseman as Cordelia in a stage production ofKing Lear.[28][29]
While at the workshop, she began acting in television series in Los Angeles to earn extra money.[24] She was brought to Hollywood byMetro, dropped, then picked up byUniversal.[30]
Ross auditioned but was not hired for a role in the filmWest Side Story (1961).[31] Her first television role was inSam Benedict in 1962.[32][33]
She was signed by agent Wally Hiller,[34] and in 1964, Ross appeared in episodes ofKraft Suspense Theatre,The Lieutenant,Arrest and Trial,The Virginian,The Great Adventure,Ben Casey,Mr. Novak,Wagon Train,Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre,Run for Your Life,Gunsmoke, andThe Alfred Hitchcock Hour ("Dividing Wall", 1963), as well as playing the love interest of Heath Barkley oppositeLee Majors onThe Big Valley (season one, episode seven-"Winner Loses All"). She screen-tested forThe Young Lovers.[35]
Ross made her first film,Shenandoah in 1965, playing the daughter-in-law ofJames Stewart. She returned to guest-starring on shows includingThe Loner,The Wild Wild West, andThe Road West. MGM put her in an unsold TV pilot about Bible stories. She signed a long-term deal with Universal, which called her an "AmericanSamantha Eggar",[36] despite some misgivings: "I didn't want a contract in the movies, but a lot of people convinced me it was a good thing to do."[37]
MGM borrowed her for supporting parts inThe Singing Nun (1966) andMister Buddwing (1966), the latter starringJames Garner.[32]
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At Universal, Ross starred in a television film withDoug McClure,The Longest Hundred Miles (1967),[24][37] then co-starred inCurtis Harrington's psychological thriller,Games (1967) withSimone Signoret andJames Caan, which she later called "terrible".[38]
Ross's breakthrough role was as Elaine Robinson inMike Nichols's comedy-dramaThe Graduate (1967), oppositeDustin Hoffman andAnne Bancroft. Ross was only eight years younger than Bancroft, who played her mother in the film. She had been recommended to director Nichols by Signoret. This part, in which Ross plays a young woman who elopes with a young man who had an affair with her mother, earned Ross anOscar nomination forBest Supporting Actress,[39] and won her aGolden Globe Award asNew Star of the Year. Commenting on her critical accolades at the time, Ross said, "I'm not a movie star... that system is dying and I'd like to help it along."[24]
She later said at this time, "I got sent everything in town, but Universal wouldn't loan me out."[37] After eight months, she was inHellfighters (1968) playingJohn Wayne's daughter, who romancesJim Hutton.
Ross was cast as aNative American woman in Universal's Western filmTell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969), starringRobert Redford.[40] In August 1968, she signed a new contract with Universal to make two films a year for seven years.[41] She refused several roles (includingJacqueline Bisset's role inBullitt)[42] before accepting the part ofEtta Place inButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), co-starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, which was another massive commercial hit.[43] She was paid $175,000 for her performance in the film.[44] For her roles in bothTell Them Willie Boy is Here andButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Ross won theBAFTA Award for Best Actress.[45]
She was dropped by Universal in the spring of 1969 for refusing to play a stewardess inAirport starringBurt Lancaster andDean Martin, another role that went to Jacqueline Bisset.[30] Because of this, she later lost out toTuesday Weld on a film she greatly desired to do, theadaptation ofJoan Didion's novelPlay It as It Lays, because it was a Universal production.[37] Instead, she had a starring role in the dramaFools (1970) oppositeJason Robards.
Ross dropped out of Hollywood for a while after in 1969 marrying cinematographerConrad Hall.[37] She occasionally acted, appearing inGet to Know Your Rabbit (1972),They Only Kill Their Masters (1972), which reunited her with James Garner, andChance and Violence (1974) withYves Montand. She refused several more roles,[46] including a part in 1974 filmThe Towering Inferno.[47]
Preferring stage acting, Ross returned to the small playhouses in Los Angeles for much of the 1970s.[46] "I'm aware that I have the reputation for being difficult", she later said.[48]
One of her best-known roles came in the 1975 filmThe Stepford Wives, for which she won theSaturn Award for Best Actress.[49]
She reprised the role of Etta Place in a 1976 ABC television film,Wanted: The Sundance Woman, a sequel toButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.[43] Ross subsequently appeared in the drama filmVoyage of the Damned (1977) about a doomed ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, which earned her a second Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.[50] She was also inThe Betsy (1978) and the disaster filmThe Swarm (1978). Next, Ross co-starred oppositeSam Elliott in the supernatural horror filmThe Legacy (1978), playing a woman who finds herself subject to an ancestral curse at an English estate. Ross had previously worked with Elliott onButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
From 1979, Ross starred in several television movies,[51] includingMurder by Natural Causes in 1979 withHal Holbrook,Barry Bostwick andRichard Anderson,Rodeo Girl in 1980,[52]Murder in Texas (1981) andMarian Rose White (1982).[42] She had a supporting role inThe Final Countdown (1980) andWrong Is Right (1982), but focused largely on television films:The Shadow Riders (1982), a remake ofWait Until Dark (1983),Travis McGee (1982) with Elliott,Secrets of a Mother and Daughter (1983),Red Headed Stranger (1986), andHouston: The Legend of Texas (1986) with Elliott.[53]
She had a role in the 1980s television seriesThe Colbys oppositeCharlton Heston as Francesca Scott Colby, mother ofDynasty crossover character Jeff Colby.[54]
Ross co-wrote the teleplay and starred inConagher (1991) alongside husband Sam Elliott and was inA Climate for Killing (1991), andHome Before Dark (1997).[55]
She played Donnie's therapist in the 2001cult classicDonnie Darko.[56] She was inDon't Let Go (2002), andCapital City (2004) and playedCarly Schroeder's grandmother in the 2006 independent filmEye of the Dolphin. She was also inSlip, Tumble & Slide (2015).
In January 2015, she appeared at the Malibu Playhouse in the first of a series titledA Conversation With, interviewed bySteven Gaydos.[31][34] That February, she again co-starred with Sam Elliott inLove Letters, also at the Malibu Playhouse.[35]
In 2017, she appeared as Sam Elliott's former wife inThe Hero, in which he played an aging Western star.
Ross has married five times. On February 28, 1960, she married her college sweetheart,Joel Fabiani, though the marriage lasted only two years before ending in divorce.[27]
She married her second husband John Marion in 1964, but they were divorced in 1967.[57]
After completingButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Ross married the film's cinematographer, three-time Oscar-winnerConrad Hall, in 1969.[46] They divorced in 1973.[58]
She married Gaetano "Tom" Lisi in 1974 after makingThe Stepford Wives; they met when he was a chauffeur and technician on the set.[59][60] They divorced in 1979.
Ross marriedSam Elliott on May 1, 1984. They had worked together onButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and began dating in 1978 after they were reacquainted on the set ofThe Legacy.[61] On September 17, 1984—four months after her marriage to Elliott and four months before turning 45—Ross gave birth to a daughter, Cleo Rose Elliott.[62][63]
In 2011, Ross filed a restraining order against her daughter after the latter allegedly attacked her with a pair of scissors.[64] Ross stated in a court document that her daughter has had violent episodes since childhood.[64]
| Year | Institution | Category | Nominated work(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Academy Awards | Best Supporting Actress | The Graduate | Nominated | [65] |
| 1969 | British Academy Film Awards | Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles | Nominated | [66] | |
| 1971 | Best Actress in a Leading Role | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid &Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here | Won | [45] | |
| 1967 | Golden Globe Awards | New Star of the Year – Actress | The Graduate | Won | [67] |
| 1976 | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Voyage of the Damned | Won | [67] | |
| 1967 | Laurel Awards | Best Supporting Actress | The Graduate | Won | |
| 1975 | Saturn Awards | Best Actress | The Stepford Wives | Won |
