Lee Grant
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
"A long, long time ago I was kid, and I realized that you are what you do. It's a very sick thing because it means that when you're not working, you're not being; it's not a healthy way to live." --Lee Grant in VENICE, April 1996
She was interviewed for the American Movie Classics documentary "Blacklist: Hollywood on Trial" (1996).
Biography
An attractive brunette with angular features, Lee Grant began her career as a child performer with NYC's Metropolitan Opera. By age 11, she had become a member of the American Ballet Theatre. After music studies at Juilliard, she won a scholarship to attend the Neighborhood Playhouse and switched her focus to acting. Grant understudied the role of Ado Annie in a touring production of "Oklahoma!" before landing her breakthrough stage role as a young shoplifter in Sidney Kingsley's "Detective Story" in 1949. Hollywood soon beckoned and she recreated the role in William Wyler's 1951 superb film version. Grant won the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress prize and earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for the role. Seemingly on the verge of a brilliant career, the actress found herself the victim of the blacklist when her husband, playwright Arnold Manoff was named before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Grant herself refused to testify and the film offers over the next decade were sporadic.
Returning to Manhattan, Grant found work in TV (e.g., the daytime soap "Search for Tomorrow") and on stage (i.e., "A Hole in the Head" 1957; "Two for the Seesaw" 1959). After earning an OBIE Award for her work in Genet's "The Maids" in 1963, her small screen career began to pick up. In 1965, Grant joined the cast of the primetime soap "Peyton Place" as Stella Chernak and picked up an Emmy for her work. She earned a second statuette for her performance as a runaway wife and mother who ends up at a truck stop in California in "The Neon Ceiling" (NBC, 1971).
By the time she had earned her second Emmy, Grant's feature career had been rejuvenated with her stellar work as the widow of a murder victim in Norman Jewison's Oscar-winning "In the Heat of the Night" (1967). That same year, she essayed a neurotic in the campy "Valley of the Dolls." In "The Landlord" (1970), she was the society matron mother of Beau Bridges and her comic portrayal earned her a second Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. Grant then played the mother of all Jewish mothers, Sophie Portnoy, in Ernest Lehman's film version of Philip Roth's novel "Portnoy's Complaint" (1972). Hal Ashby's "Shampoo" (1975) finally brought her a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award as a Beverly Hills matron having an affair with her hairdresser. The following year, Grant received a fourth nomination for her deeply moving portrayal of a Jewish refugee in "Voyage of the Damned."
Her subsequent screen roles have been of varying quality, although Grant always brings a professionalism and degree of excellence to even the smallest role. After striking out as a sitcom lead in the underrated "Fay" (NBC, 1975), she delivered a fine portrayal of First Lady Grace Coolidge in "Backstairs at the White House" (NBC, 1979), was the domineering mother of actress Frances Farmer in "Will There Really Be a Morning?" (CBS, 1983) and excelled as Dora Cohn, mother of "Roy Cohn" (HBO, 1992). On the big screen, Grant lent her substantial abilities to "Teachers" (1984) as a hard-nosed school superintendent, "Defending Your Life" (1991), as an elegant prosecutor sparring with adversary Rip Torn, and "It's My Party" (1996), as the mother of man suffering from complications from AIDS.
While Grant has continued to act in features and on TV, she has concentrated more on her directing career since the 80s. After studying at the American Film Institute, she made the short "The Stronger" (1976) which eventually aired on Arts & Entertainment's "Shortstories" in 1988. Grant made her feature debut with "Tell Me a Riddle" (1980), an earnest, well-acted story of an elderly couple facing death. She has excelled in the documentary format, beginning with "The Wilmar 8" (1981), about strike by female bank employees in the Midwest. (Grant later directed a fictionalized account entitled "A Matter of Sex" for NBC in 1984). She steered Marlo Thomas to an Emmy in the fact-based "Nobody's Child" (CBS, 1986) and earned praise for helming "No Place Like Home" (CBS, 1989), a stark look at the effects of unemployment. A number of her documentaries have been screen as part of HBO's "America Undercover" series, including the Oscar-winning "Down and Out in America" (1985), about the unemployed, "What Sex Am I?" (1985), about transsexuals and transvestites, "Battered" (1989), about victims of domestic violence, and "Women on Trial" (1992), about mothers who turn to the courts to protect their children. In 1997, she produced, directed and hosted the well-received "Say It, Fight It, Cure It" (Lifetime) which focused on breast cancer survivors and their families.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Film Production - Main (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Director (Special)
Cast (Special)
Writer (Special)
Producer (Special)
Special Thanks (Special)
Cast (TV Mini-Series)
Life Events
1933
First stage performance at Metropolitan Opera
1938
Made member of American Ballet
1944
Professional stage debut as understudy for the character of Ado Annie in the touring production of "Oklahoma!" (date approximate)
1948
Broadway acting debut in "Joy to the World"
1949
Breakthrough stage role, "Detective Story"
1951
Made feature acting debut reprising her stage role in "Detective Story"; earned first Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress
1953
Played Rose Peabody on the CBS daytime drama "Search for Tomorrow"
1959
Played Gittle Mosca in the Broadway production "Two for the Seesaw"
1963
Won acclaim for her stage performance in the Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's "The Maids"
1965
Joined the cast of the primetime soap "Peyton Place" (ABC), played Stella Chernik; won Emmy Award
1967
Had prominent role as the wife of murder victim in "In the Heat of the Night"; role revitalized her film career
1970
Earned second Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination opposite Beau Bridges in "The Landlord"
1971
Co-starred with Peter Falk on Broadway in Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue"
1971
Played one of the female leads in "Plaza Suite," adapted from Neil Simon's play
1971
Won second Emmy for her performance in the TV-movie "The Neon Ceiling" (NBC)
1972
Played Mother Portnoy in Ernest Lehman's film adaptation of Philip Roth's novel "Portnoy's Complaint"
1973
Co-starred in the busted CBS pilot "The Ted Bessell Show"
1973
TV directing debut, "The Shape of Things" (CBS)
1975
Starred in the short-lived NBC sitcom "Fay"
1975
Won Best Supporting Actress Oscar as a Beverly Hills matron in "Shampoo"
1976
Directed the short film "The Stronger"
1976
Earned fourth Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress as a mentally unstable Jewish refugee in "Voyage of the Damned"
1980
Feature film directing debut, "Tell Me a Riddle"
1981
Narrated and directed the acclaimed documentary "The Wilmar 8"
1982
Co-starred opposite Jerry Orbach in the HBO adaptation of Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite"
1984
Adapted her documentary "The Wilmar 8" as NBC TV-movie "A Matter of Sex"
1984
Narrated and directed the HBO documentary "When Women Kill"; aired as part of "America Undercover"
1985
Directed and narrated the documentary "Down and Out in America" (1985), the first pay-cable TV film to win an Academy Award; the film became eligible after a theatrical run in 1986
1986
First television collaboration with Marlo Thomas, the CBS biopic "Nobody's Child"; Thomas won an Emmy and Grant received the Directors Guild of America Award
1989
Produced, directed and narrated "Battered" (HBO), aired on "America Undercover"
1989
Helmed "No Place Like Home," starring Christine Lahti for CBS
1992
Played the mother of Roy Cohn (James Woods) in the HBO biopic "Citizen Cohn"
1994
Reteamed with Marlo Thomas for the CBS TV-movie "Reunion"
1996
Played Eric Roberts' mother in "It's My Party"
1997
Produced, directed and hosted "Say It, Fight It, Cure It," a Lifetime documentary about breast cancer; included interviews with survivors and members of their families
1999
Directed various episodes of the Lifetime biographical series "Intimate Portrait"
2000
Appeared in the ensemble cast of Robert Altman's "Dr T and the Women"
2001
Cast in David Lynch's noir drama "Mulholland Dr."
2005
Co-starred with Victoria Foyt, Rob Morrow and Bruce Davison in "Going Shopping," directed by Henry Jaglom
2005
Directed the HBO documentary "... A Father... A Son... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"
2006
Executive produced the HBO documentary "Baghdad ER"
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Notes
"A long, long time ago I was kid, and I realized that you are what you do. It's a very sick thing because it means that when you're not working, you're not being; it's not a healthy way to live." --Lee Grant in VENICE, April 1996
She was interviewed for the American Movie Classics documentary "Blacklist: Hollywood on Trial" (1996).
When asked by Anthony Duignan-Cabrera of PEOPLE "What has been the most lasting effect of the HUAC ordeal for you?"Grant replied: "The fear thet you could open your mouth and destroy somebody was so unbearable, I still get blocked on names. I'll see someone that I've known all my life, and I won't know the person's name. I have such a problem that when I'm in a play, I have to write characters' names on my hands so I can remember them." --PEOPLE, February 26, 1996
