Ellen Burstyn
(Chris MacNeill)

Born Edna Rae Gilhooley in Detroit, Mich., Ellen Burstyn took a rather circuitous route to acting. She was a short order cook at 14, and after dropping out of high school, she went to Texas to model. From there, she relocated to New York to appear as a showgirl on Jackie Gleason's television show and then moved to Montreal for a gig as a nightclub dancer. As Ellen McRae, she made her Broadway debut in Fair Game in 1957 and appeared on television in the daytime drama The Doctors and the Western Iron Horse. It was her role in the 1964 film Goodbye Charlie that first gained her public prominence. Burstyn took some time off shortly thereafter to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the prestigious Actors' Studio. In 1971, now billed as Ellen Burstyn, she landed a juicy supporting role in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show; the role earned the actress her first Academy Award® nomination. She was again nominated for The Exorcist. While she didn't win for either film, she did win the Best Actress Oscar® the following year for the Scorsese-directed picture Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), a film she packaged and sold to Warner Brothers herself.

Not limited to the silver screen, Burstyn won a Tony for her role in the Broadway comedy, Same Time, Next Year. She reprised the role for the big-screen version in 1978 and earned yet another Best Actress Academy Award® nomination.

While Burstyn's output in the '80s was generally limited to television movies, she did earn her fifth Oscar® nomination for 1980's Resurrection. Amidst films with titles like Taking Back My Life: The Nancy Ziegenmeyer Story and Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story, Burstyn snagged Emmy nominations for the telefilms The People Vs. Jean Harris (1981) and Pack of Lies (1987). She finally won the award in 2000 for the daytime children's special Mermaids, giving her all three awards (Oscar®, Tony® and Emmy® ) in show business' Triple Crown. In addition to her acting, Burstyn was the first female president of the actor's union, Actor' s Equity, serving from 1982 to 1985.

The past few years have seen a career resurgence for the actress. In 2000, she was nominated for an Oscar® for her stunning performance in Requiem for a Dream, and in 2001 she made People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" list. Burstyn can next be seen in 2002's movie adaptation of Rebecca Wells' novel The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, also starring Sandra Bullock and James Garner.