Ellen Burstyn
Birthday: 1932-12-07
Place of Birth: Detroit, Michigan, USA
Synopsis
Ellen Burstyn (born Edna Rae Gillooly; December 7, 1932) is an American actress. Known for her portrayal of complicated women in dramas, Burstyn is the recipient of various accolades, and is among the few performers to have won an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony (Triple Crown of Acting).
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Burstyn left school and worked as a dancer and model. She made her stage debut on Broadway in 1957 and soon started to make appearances in television shows. Stardom followed several years later with her acclaimed role in The Last Picture Show (1971), which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her next appearance in The Exorcist (1973), earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film has remained popular and several publications have regarded it as one of the greatest horror films of all time. She followed this with Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
She appeared in numerous television films and gained further recognition from her performances in Same Time, Next Year (1978), which won her a Golden Globe Award, and Resurrection (1980), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), and Requiem For a Dream (2000). For playing a lonely drug-addicted woman in the last one of these, she was again nominated for an Academy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In the 2010s, she made appearances in television series including the political dramas, Political Animals and House of Cards, which have earned her Emmy Award nominations. Since 2000, she has been co-president of the Actors Studio, a drama school in New York City. In 2013, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame for her work on stage.
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Acting
Three Months
as Valerie
Caleb, a South Florida teen, loves his camera, his weed and his grandmother. On the eve of his high school graduation, everything changes when he's exposed to HIV. While he waits three months for his results, Caleb finds love in the most unlikely of places.
Watch on the Rhine
as Fanny
Written and set during the rise of Hitler’s Germany, Watch on the Rhine is a play about an American family, suddenly awakened to the danger threatening its liberty.
Queen Bees
as Helen Wilson
Helen is an independent widow who moves into the Pine Grove Senior Community and discovers it’s just like high school – full of cliques and flirtatious suitors. What she initially avoids leads her to exactly what she has been missing: new friendships and a chance at love again with newcomer Dan.
Pieces of a Woman
as Elizabeth Weiss
When a young mother's home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.
American Woman
as Miss Dolly
A political activist helps take care of a group of America’s most wanted fugitives, including a well-known, recently radicalized heiress.
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Lucy in the Sky
as Nana Holbrook
Astronaut Lucy Cola returns to Earth after a transcendent experience during a mission to space – and begins to lose touch with reality in a world that now seems too small.
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Steven Arnold: Heavenly Bodies
as Self
Anjelica Huston narrates this exploration of the spectacularly dreamlike world of Salvador Dali’s protégé, Steven Arnold, and his strikingly creative and influential body of work filled with occult rituals, Hollywood camp, and surrealist art nouveau whimsy. Taken from more than 70 hours of original and archival footage, including rare scenes of Holly Woodlawn, director Vishnu Dass digs deeply into the decadent countercultural and inspiring life of this unheralded multimedia artist of the queer community.
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All I Wish
as Celia Berges
A woman struggles to escape the clutches of her overbearing, co-dependent mother, while gradually falling for a sexy, sophisticated attorney.
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Nostalgia
as Helen Greer
A mosaic of stories about love and loss, exploring our relationship to the objects, artifacts, and memories that shape our lives.
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The House of Tomorrow
as Josephine Prendergast
The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.
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Custody
as Beatrice Fisher
When a hard-working single mother, Sara Diaz, has her children taken from her after she is suspected of injuring her son, Ally Fisher, a recent law school graduate, is assigned to represent her case before Judge Martha Schulman, a veteran of the Family Court System.
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Wiener-Dog
as Nana
A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.
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The Age of Adaline
as Flemming
After 29-year-old Adaline recovers from a nearly lethal accident, she inexplicably stops growing older. As the years stretch on and on, Adaline keeps her secret to herself until she meets a man who changes her life.
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About Scout
as Gram
A rebellious Goth girl embarks on a road trip across Texas with a suicidal young man in an effort to find her little sister.
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Two Men in Town
as Mère Garnett
A convict is released from prison in a small town in New Mexico. 18 years ago he killed a deputy. The then-and-now sheriff seeks revenge.
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Draft Day
as Barb Weaver
At the NFL Draft, general manager Sonny Weaver has the opportunity to rebuild his team when he trades for the number one pick. He must decide what he's willing to sacrifice on a life-changing day for a few hundred young men with NFL dreams.
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The Calling
as Emily Micallef
Detective Hazel Micallef hasn't had much to worry about in the sleepy town of Port Dundas until a string of gruesome murders in the surrounding countryside brings her face to face with a serial killer driven by a higher calling.
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Interstellar
as Murph (older)
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
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Petals on the Wind
as Olivia Foxworth
This sequel to Flowers in the Attic picks up 10 years after Cathy, Chris and Carrie managed to escape Foxworth Hall.
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Flowers in the Attic
as Olivia Foxworth
After the sudden death of their father, four children face cruel treatment from their ruthless grandmother.
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And the Oscar Goes To...
as Self - Interviewee
The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy itself, which began in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM, led other prominent members of the industry in forming this professional honorary organization. Two years later the Academy began bestowing awards, which were nicknamed "Oscar," and quickly came to represent the pinnacle of cinematic achievement.
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Wish You Well
as Louisa Mae Cardinal
A young girl and her brother come of age at their great grandmother's house in Virginia during the 1940s. After a family tragedy, a young girl moves from New York with your younger brother to live with their great grandmother on a Virginia farm and comes closer to understanding the land and roots that inspired her father's writings while discovering herself, the love of family, and the power of truly believing.
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Political Animals
as Margaret Barrish
Political Animals is a six-part miniseries. Elaine Barrish's husband Bud was a popular President of the United States during the 1990s despite his extramarital affairs. After leaving the White House, Elaine Barrish was elected Governor of Illinois and ran for the Democratic nomination for President, but lost to Paul Garcetti. The night Barrish conceded the nomination, she asked her husband for a divorce. Two years later, as Garcetti's Secretary of State, Barrish deals with State Department issues while trying to keep her family together.
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Coma
as Mrs. Emerson
A young medical student discovers that something sinister is going on in her hospital after routine procedures send more than a few seemingly healthy patients into comas on the operating table.
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Coma
as Mrs. Emerson
A young medical student discovers that something sinister is going on in her hospital after routine procedures send more than a few seemingly healthy patients into comas on the operating table. Remake of Coma 1978.
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Another Happy Day
as Doris Baker
A wedding at her parents' Annapolis estate hurls high-strung Lynn into the center of touchy family dynamics.
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BBStory: An American Film Renaissance
as Self
This 2009 documentary features directors Bob Rafelson, Peter Bogdanovich, and Henry Jaglom, actor-director Jack Nicholson, and actresses Karen Black and Ellen Burstyn, among others, reminiscing about the making of the groundbreaking films of BBS Productions.
