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Julie Harris
Publicity photo of Julie Harris (1973)
Born	Julia Ann Harris (1925-12-02)December 2, 1925 Grosse Pointe, Michigan, U.S.
Died	August 24, 2013(2013-08-24) (aged 87) West Chatham, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education	Yale University
Years active	1945–2009
Spouses	Jay Julian ​ ​(m. 1946; div. 1954)​ Manning Gurian ​ ​(m. 1954; div. 1967)​ Walter Carroll ​ ​(m. 1977; div. 1982)​
Children	1

Julia Ann Harris (December 2, 1925 – August 24, 2013) was an American actress. Renowned for her classical and contemporary roles, she earned numerous accolades including the record five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play, three Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, and a BAFTA Award. She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, received the National Medal of Arts in 1994, the Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2005.

After making her Broadway debut in 1945 Harris went on to win five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play for her roles in I Am a Camera (1952), The Lark (1956), Forty Carats (1969), The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1973), and The Belle of Amherst (1977). Her other Tony-nominated roles were in Marathon '33 (1964), Skyscraper (1966), The au Pair Man (1974), Lucifer's Child (1991), and The Gin Game (1997).

She starred in the 1950 play The Member of the Wedding, a role she reprised in the 1952 film of the same name, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other notable film roles include East of Eden (1955), I Am a Camera (1955), The Haunting (1963), and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). Harris received three Primetime Emmy Awards for her roles in Little Moon of Alban (1969), Victoria Regina (1962), and Not for Ourselves Alone (1999). She won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for The Belle of Amherst (1978)

Early life and education

Julia Ann Harris was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the daughter of Elsie L. (née Smith), a nurse, and William Pickett Harris, an investment banker and authority on zoology. She had an older brother, William, and a younger brother, Richard. She graduated from Grosse Pointe Country Day School, which later merged with two others to form the University Liggett School. In New York City, she attended The Hewitt School. As a teenager, she also trained at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp in Colorado with Charlotte Perry, a mentor who encouraged Harris to apply to the Yale School of Drama, which she soon attended for a year. In 2007, Yale bestowed an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree upon Harris. As a founding member of Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio, Harris studied method acting, which emphasized psychology and emotions, and although it was strongly associated with male actors, she was able to successfully employ its techniques.

Career

1945–1959: Early roles

In 1952, Harris won her first Best Actress Tony Award for originating the role of insouciant Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera, the stage version of Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin (later adapted as the Broadway musical Cabaret (1966) and as the 1972 film, with Liza Minnelli as Sally). Harris repeated her stage role in the film version of I Am a Camera (1955). Harris's screen debut was in 1952, repeating her Broadway success as the lonely teenaged girl Frankie in Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Director Elia Kazan cast her in East of Eden (1955) opposite James Dean in his first major screen role.

Harris was nominated for 11 Primetime Emmy Awards for her television work, winning three. She starred as Nora Helmer opposite Christopher Plummer in A Doll's House (1959), a 90-minute television adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's play. She made more appearances in leading roles on the Hallmark Hall of Fame than any other actress, also appearing in two different adaptations of the play Little Moon of Alban, her performance in the 1958 TV movie of the same name earning her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.

1960–1989: Breakthrough and acclaim

She played the ethereal Eleanor Lance in The Haunting (1963), director Robert Wise's screen adaptation of a novel by Shirley Jackson. Another cast member recalled Harris refusing to socialize with the other actors while not on set, later explaining that she had done so as a method of emphasizing the alienation from the other characters experienced by her character in the film. Other notable films Harris appeared in during the 1960s include Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), Harper (with Paul Newman) (1966), and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). Another noteworthy film appearance was the World War II drama The Hiding Place (1975).

Her second Emmy win came for her role as Queen Victoria in the 1961 Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Laurence Housman's Victoria Regina. She received further Emmy nominations for a range of roles including Anastasia (1967), The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1976)—where she reprised her Tony-winning role as Mary Todd Lincoln from the 1973 play of the same name—and The Woman He Loved (1988). She won her third Emmy award in 2000 for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for her voice role of Susan B. Anthony in Not for Ourselves Alone.

Of particular note is her Tony-winning performance in The Belle of Amherst, a one-woman play (written by William Luce and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly) based on the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson. She received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for the audio recording of the play. She first performed the play in 1976 and subsequently appeared in other solo shows, including Luce's Brontë. Harris holds the Tonys record as the person with most wins (5) and nominations (9) in the Lead Actress in a Play category. Other Broadway credits include The Playboy of the Western World, Macbeth, The Member of the Wedding, A Shot in the Dark, Skyscraper, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, Forty Carats, The Glass Menagerie, A Doll's House, The Gin Game, and a North American tour in 1992 of Lettice and Lovage in the lead part originated by Maggie Smith on Broadway.

In 1980, Harris guest starred in the series Knots Landing as country singer Lilimae Clements, the eccentric and protective mother of Valene Ewing (Joan Van Ark); she returned to the series as a regular character from 1981 to 1987. The role earned Harris a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, and two Soap Opera Digest Award nominations. In 1983, Harris became a company member of The Mirror Theater Ltd's Mirror Repertory Company. She became a mentor to the company, having urged Founding Artistic Director Sabra Jones to create the company from 1976 forward, when Jones married John Strasberg. Harris and Jones met at a performance of The Belle of Amherst, a revival of which The Mirror Theater Ltd recently performed in their summer home in Vermont.

1990–2009: Established actress

Harris made two recordings of narrations of E. B. White's children's book Stuart Little for the Pathways of Sound record label: the last six chapters for a single LP record in 1965, and the entire book for a two-record set in 1979. She also recorded narrations of many children's books for Caedmon Records. Harris also did extensive voiceover work for documentary maker Ken Burns: the voices of Emily Warren Roebling in Brooklyn Bridge (1981), Ann Lee in The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984), and most notably Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut for Burns' 1990 series The Civil War.

In the summer of 2008, she appeared on stage again in Chatham, Massachusetts, as "Nanny" in a Monomoy Theater production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Harris continued to work until 2009, well into her eighties, narrating five historical documentaries by Christopher Seufert and Mooncusser Films, as well as being active as a director on the board of the independent Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT). In 2007, when the company built a new, additional theater, also in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Ms Harris declined to have the building named for her. However, she consented to their naming "a piece of it after me"; WHAT named their stage the "Julie Harris Stage".

Personal life

Harris lived in West Chatham, Cape Cod, for many years until her death. Three times divorced, she had one son, Peter Gurian. A breast cancer survivor, she suffered a severe fall requiring surgery in 1999, a stroke in 2001, and a second stroke in 2010.

Harris died on August 24, 2013, of congestive heart failure at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts. Harris was cremated after her death.

Legacy and honors

On December 5, 2005, Harris was named a Kennedy Center Honoree. At a White House ceremony, President George W. Bush remarked: "It's hard to imagine the American stage without the face, the voice, and the limitless talent of Julie Harris. She has found happiness in her life's work, and we thank her for sharing that happiness with the whole world."

Ben Brantley, theater critic for The New York Times, considered her "the actress who towered most luminously ... rather like a Statue of Liberty for Broadway." Alec Baldwin, who played Harris's son on Knots Landing, praised her in a tribute in the Huffington Post: "Her voice was like rainfall. Her eyes connected directly to and channeled the depths of her powerful and tender heart. Her talent, a gift from God."

Harris ties with Angela Lansbury with five Tony Award wins (Audra McDonald has since passed them both, with six wins). However, she holds the record (alongside Chita Rivera) for the most individual Tony Award nominations, with 10 (Audra McDonald has also since received her 10th nomination). In 1966, Harris won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.

On August 28, 2013, Broadway theaters dimmed their lights for one minute in honor of Harris.

On December 3, 2013, Joan Van Ark announced at a Broadway memorial service the creation of the Julie Harris Scholarship, which provides annual support to an actor studying at the Yale School of Drama. Alec Baldwin made the first contribution. In 2021, Yale Drama became tuition-free and was rebranded the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.

Acting credits

Theatre

Films

Television

Awards and nominations

References

1. ^ "Tony Awards Facts & Trivia". Tony Awards. Archived from the original on July 4, 2015. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
2. "Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts". National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved December 15, 2012.
3. "Julie Harris profile". Film Reference. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
4. 1940 United States Federal Census
5. ^ Mula, Rose Madeline. "Julie Harris – Too Good to be True?". Senior Women Web. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
6. "Famous Yalie dropouts". Yale Alumni Magazine. March 2001. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
7. "Julie Harris, Broadway Star, Dies at 87". The Hollywood Reporter. Associated Press. August 24, 2013. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
8. "Yale Confers 10 Honorary Doctorates at Commencement 2007" (Press release). YaleNews. May 28, 2007. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
9. Berson, Misha (July 12, 1998). "Queen Of Stage Julie Harris Is Back -- At 72, The Still-Luminous Actress Takes Time to Savor the 'Scent of the Roses' at Act | The Seattle Times". archive.seattletimes.com. Retrieved July 4, 2022.
10. McArdle, Terence; Weil, Martin (August 25, 2013). "Julie Harris, esteemed film and stage actress who won five Tony Awards, dies at 87". Washington Post.
11. Hollinger, Karen (2013). The Actress: Hollywood Acting and the Female Star. Routledge. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-135-20589-8.
12. Paller, Rebecca (January 16, 2009). "Julie Harris... A Bit of Magic on a Cold Winter's Day". Paley Center for Media. Archived from the original on June 15, 2010. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
13. "William Luce's Bronte – Press". Samuel French, Inc. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
14. Gussow, Mel (March 11, 1984). "Theater: Mirror Rep, in a Revival of 'Rain'". The New York Times. Retrieved December 9, 2018.
15. Rodgers, David K. (September 14, 2016). "Dickinson Brought To Life By Schaffel" (PDF). Hardwick Gazette. p. 6. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
16. Burkey, Mary (2013). Audiobooks for Youth: A Practical Guide to Sound Literature. Chicago: American Library Association. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-8389-1157-0.
17. Kresh, Paul (February 18, 1979). "The Children's World of E.B. White on Discs". The New York Times.
18. "PRH Audio: Stuart Little by E.B. White, read by Julie Harris". SoundCloud.
19. Rizzo, Frank (August 28, 2008). "Julie Harris Returns To Stage". Hartford Courant. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
20. "WHAT Board". Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
21. Rose, Judy (November 4, 2012). "Michigan House Envy: Windmill Pointe palace offers medieval charm". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
22. Caswell, Jon (July–August 2007). "The Belle of Aphasia". Stroke Connection. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
23. Weil, Martin (August 24, 2013). "Tony-Winning Actress Julie Harris Dies at 87". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
24. Kennedy, Mark (August 24, 2013). "Julie Harris, Broadway Star, Dies at 87". Associated Press. Archived from the original on August 25, 2013. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
25. Wilson, Scott (August 19, 2016). Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons (3d ed.). McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-2599-7. Retrieved December 9, 2018 – via Google Books.
26. "President Welcomes Kennedy Center Honorees to the White House". The White House. December 4, 2005. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
27. Brantley, Ben (August 25, 2013). "Luminous Julie Harris, Close Up and Afar". The New York Times. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
28. Baldwin, Alec (August 30, 2013). "A Public Farewell to Julie Harris". Huffington Post. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
29. "Tony Awards Ohio State Murders". Tony Awards. Retrieved May 30, 2023.
30. Snetiker, Marc (August 27, 2013). "Broadway Theaters to Dim Lights in Honor of Stage Legend Julie Harris". Broadway.com. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
31. "Julie Harris Scholarship Established at Yale School of Drama". Broadway World. Retrieved December 7, 2020.
32. Paulson, Michael (June 30, 2021). "Yale Drama Goes Tuition-Free With $150 Million Gift From David Geffen". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 13, 2021.
33. "Alice In Wonderland: Opening Night Cast". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved March 31, 2022.

Further reading

• Young, Jordan R. (1989). Acting Solo: The Art of One-Person Shows. Beverly Hills: Past Times Publishing Co. Introduction by Julie Harris. ISBN 9780940410848. OCLC 1020463283.

External links

• Julie Harris at the Internet Broadway Database
• Julie Harris at IMDb
• Julie Harris at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• TonyAwards.com Interview with Julie Harris
• Senior Women Web Interviews: Julie Harris – Too Good to be True?

• 1925 births
• 2013 deaths
• 20th-century American actresses
• 21st-century American actresses
• Actresses from Michigan
• American film actresses
• American musical theatre actresses
• American television actresses
• Caedmon Records artists
• Donaldson Award winners
• Grammy Award winners
• Method actors
• Hewitt School alumni
• Kennedy Center honorees
• People from Chatham, Massachusetts
• People from Grosse Pointe, Michigan
• Actresses from Manhattan
• Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Primetime Emmy Award winners
• Special Tony Award recipients
• Tony Award winners
• United States National Medal of Arts recipients
• Yale University alumni
• David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University alumni
• Deaths from congestive heart failure