Lee Grant

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Lee Grant at the premiere for the film FIST, 1978

Lee Grant (* 31 October 1925 as Lyova Haskell Rosenthal in New York City ) is an American actress and director . She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1975 for her role in Shampoo .

life and work

Lee Grant was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1952 for her film debut as a young shoplifter in Police Station 21 and received the Acting Award at the Cannes International Film Festival for this rather small role .

In 1951, during the McCarthy era , Grant gave an eulogy for actor J. Edward Bromberg , whose early death was also attributed to the stress and worries caused by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). After this speech was published, it was summoned to appear before the committee. There they wanted her to testify against her own husband, the playwright Arnold Manoff. She refused and was blacklisted in Hollywood. She was on this for 12 years, which abruptly ended her Hollywood career , which had just begun successfully through Police Station 21 . Kirk Douglas accused director Edward Dmytryk of being responsible for the denunciation.

In the late 1960s, Grant made her comeback in Hollywood with prominent roles in the drama The Valley of the Puppets (1967) and the Oscar-winning police drama In the Heat of the Night (1967) . In addition to three other nominations for Police Station 21 (1951), The House Owner (1970) and Journey of the Damned (1976), she won the 1976 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Shampoo . In this Hal Ashby film , she played an entrepreneur's wife who had an affair with the hairdresser played by Warren Beatty . She also appeared in television roles and won two Emmys , Best Supporting Actress in Peyton Place in 1964 and Best Actress in The Neon Ceiling in 1971 . From the 1980s, she was less active as an actress because she was pursuing her directing career. Her later films include Chicago Blues (1987) with Matt Dillon and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001), in which she made a flashy appearance as the black-clad fortune-teller Louise Bonner , who makes a mysterious prophecy.

From the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s, Lee Grant also worked regularly as a director. She shot a variety of documentaries, such as celebrity portraits for the television series Intimate Portrait as well as ambitious cinema documentaries on social issues such as transgender (the documentary What Sex Am I?, 1985) and discrimination against women in the workplace ( The Willmar 8 , 1981). Her documentary Down and Out in America , which portrays social disadvantage in the United States and takes a critical look at Reagan's economic policies, won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 1987 . Lee Grant also made several feature films with fictional content, mainly television films, but also the tragic comedy Boys (1989) starring Sean Astin and Dermot Mulroney for the big screen.

Lee Grant was married to screenwriter Arnold Manoff from 1951 to 1960. From this first marriage the daughter Dinah Manoff (born January 25, 1958) was born. In 1962 she married the producer Joseph Feury, with whom she also has a daughter.

Filmography (selection)

As an actress

As a director

  • 1975: For the Use of the Hall (TV movie)
  • 1980: Tell Me a Riddle
  • 1981: The Willmar 8 (documentary)
  • 1985: Junge Schicksale ( ABC Afterschool Specials ; TV series, 1 episode)
  • 1985: What Sex Am I? (Documentary)
  • 1986: Down and Out in America (documentary)
  • 1989: Boys (Staying Together)
  • 1989: Burning Destiny ( No Place Like Home ; TV movie)
  • 1990-2004: Intimate Portrait (TV documentary series, 45 episodes)
  • 1994: Seasons of the Heart (TV movie)
  • 1994: Nashville ( Following Her Heart ; TV movie)
  • 1994: The Call of Death ( Reunion ; TV movie)
  • 2005: ... A Father ... A Son ... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (television documentary)

Web links

Commons : Lee Grant  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Lee Grant on life beyond the Hollywood blacklist" , CBS "Sunday Morning", August 3, 2014.
  2. ↑ Douglas, Kirk. I Am Spartacus: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist , Open Road Media (2012) p. 26, ISBN 978-1453254806
  3. ↑ https://www.mulholland-drive.net/cast/louise.htm .
  4. ^ Lee Grant - Visual History Interview. Retrieved June 6, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Entry at filmreference.com
personal data
SURNAME Grant, Lee
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rosenthal, Lyova Haskell (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actress and director
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York , United States