Elaine May

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Elaine May (born April 21, 1932 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ; born Elaine Berlin ) is an American actress , author , theater and film director . She was one of the first filmmakers to establish herself, at least temporarily, in American commercial film.

Life

The daughter of the theater director and actor Jack Berlin and his wife, the actress Ida Berlin, performed alongside her father as a child. In 1947 she took acting lessons from Maria Ouspenskaya .

She married Marvin May in the late 1940s when she was sixteen. She gave birth to a daughter who later became actress, director, screenwriter Jeannie Berlin (who kept her mother's maiden name). In later years she often worked with Jeanne on theater productions. In 1949 she divorced at the age of 17. In 1962 she married the lyricist Sheldon Harnick, best known for his work on Fiddler On The Roof , but they divorced after a year. Later May went with her psychoanalyst, Dr. David L. Rubinfine a connection with later marriage. May and Rubinfine remained married until his death in 1982, although they were separated in later years. From 1999 until his death in February 2019, the American film director and choreographer Stanley Donen was her partner.

Career

Professionally, she began her career in 1949 as a technical assistant on New York stages. From 1950 she attended the University of Chicago . She also studied method acting . In 1953 she became a member of the Playwrights Theater Club theater company and met actor Mike Nichols .

Together with Nichols, she formed a successful comedy duo . In 1960 the pair made a sensational debut on Broadway with An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May . The following year, after separating from Nichols, May began her career as a playwright and stage director. She also worked for the radio and recorded records. In New York she formed and directed the theater company The Third Ear . In 1980 she appeared in a stage version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? up again with Nichols.

From 1966 May came occasionally to film roles, she also made contributions as a screenwriter and director. With No one kills as badly as I do , So good friends and changing horses on their wedding night, she specialized in satirical comedies in which the hostile relationship between man and woman played the central role and revealed the privileged position of men in cheating on women. She later distanced herself from the final version of her film, nobody kills as badly as I do , because it was cut against her will.

For many Hollywood producers, May was considered difficult, among other things because she repeatedly delayed the cut versions of their film Mikey and Nicky , so that the film could only appear three years after the end of shooting. In 1985, Warren Beatty gave her the opportunity as producer and lead actor to realize an elaborate production based on her ideas with the comedy Ishtar, shot in Morocco , but the film flopped and drew heavy reviews. As a screenwriter and actress, she was able to regain her reputation in the 1990s.

Filmography

Awards

  • 1962: Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance with Mike Nichols for An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May
  • 1969: Drama Desk Award as promising playwright for adaptation
  • 1972: Nomination for the Golden Globe Award in the category Best Actress - Comedy or Musical for her role in Nobody Kills As Bad as Me
  • 1978: Saturn Award for Best Screenplay for Heaven Shall Wait with Warren Beatty
  • 1979: At the 1979 Academy Awards , she was nominated for an Oscar in the Adapted Screenplay for Heaven Shall Wait .
  • 1988: Golden Raspberry for Worst Director for Ishtar
  • 1998: Nomination for an online film Critics Society Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay for With All Power
  • 1999: British Academy Film Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for With All Power
  • 1999: At the 1999 Academy Awards , she was nominated for an Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay for With All Power
  • 2000: Nomination for an online film Critics Society Awards in the category Best Supporting Actress for her role in Narrow Gauge Crooks
  • 2001: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Narrow Gauge Crooks
  • 2022: Honorary Oscar for her life's work

literature

  • Kay Less : The film's great personal lexicon . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, cutters, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 348 f.

Web links

Commons : Elaine May  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b see Bawden, Liz-Anne (Ed.): Bucher's Enzyklopädie des Films . Lucerne [u. a.]: Bucher, 1977. - ISBN 3-7658-0231-X . P. 500
  2. ↑ see biography of Elaine May in the Jewish Women's Archive (accessed December 30, 2009)
  3. ↑ Entry at filmreference.com
  4. ↑ a b see Elaine May. In: Ephraim Katz: The Macmillan international film encyclopedia . Macmillan: New York, NY, 1994. ISBN 0-333-61601-4 , pp. 918-919.
  5. ↑ THE ACADEMY TO HONOR DANNY GLOVER, SAMUEL L. JACKSON, ELAINE MAY AND LIV ULLMANN WITH OSCARS® AT 2022 GOVERNORS AWARDS. June 24, 2021, accessed June 25, 2021 .
personal data
SURNAME May, Elaine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berlin, Elaine (maiden name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION American actress, screenwriter and film director
DATE OF BIRTH April 21, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , United States