 |
 |
||||
       |
| ||||
|
|
||||
|
Julie Harris was born on December 2, 1925 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. She is widely regarded as the most respected and honored stage actress in America. Playwrights have created roles for her, critics have lavished praise on her, audiences have adored her in the theater, in the movies and on television. For decades, her awards for her stage performances in "I Am a Camera" (1952), "The Lark" (1956), "Forty Carats" (1969), "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln" (1973) and "The Belle of Amherst" (1977), gave her the distinction of winning more Tony Awards than any other performer. Her 10 nominations were likewise unequalled. Then in 2002, she was honored with yet another Tony--a Lifetime Achievement Award--securing her place in the record books for decades to come. Most tellingly, her greatest fans have been the playwrights and directors who have witnessed the miracle of a Julie Harris performance from the inside out. Harold Clurman, who directed her breakthrough performance in the stage version of "The Member of the Wedding," described her as "a nun whose church is the stage." Elia Kazan, her director on the film "East of Eden," called her "an angel…kind and patient and everlastingly sympathetic." James Prideaux, who wrote "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln" for her, called her "a bride of the theater." The playwright Donald Freed, author of "The Countess," in which she portrayed Tolstoy's wife, said, "No matter what character she plays, there is something transcendent about her performance. And no matter how transcendent, there is also something poignantly human." Indeed for more than half a century, Julie Harris has been recognized as the soul of the American theater. She is that rare artist who has devoted her life to the stage--on Broadway and off, and in theaters, large and small, throughout the nation. She says she knew she would do so from the very beginning: "The stage! I knew it was where I wanted to be. I loved it all. It became this great source of nourishment, spiritual nourishment, for me. I found everything in life there." |
|
 Harris was introduced to the theater by her parents who regularly took her into Detroit on weekend afternoons the see the Broadway plays and players coming through town on national tours. At 20, she made her own Broadway debut in a comedy seemingly named to describe her talent: "It's a Gift." It ran just over a month, and for five more years she tried to get noticed in a variety of Broadway productions that included revivals of Shakespeare and Synge, and new plays now long forgotten. But in 1950 she opened in the stage adaptation of Carson McCullers' "The Member of the Wedding." She was 24, spent more than a year playing a 12-year-old, and her success was absolute. Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times: "Julie Harris gives an extraordinary performance--vibrant, full of anguish and elation." Suddenly she was a star on Broadway. In 1952, she also played the part in the film version, was nominated for an Oscar and became a household name across America. Her next stage outing back in New York was equally brilliant. As the first Sally Bowles, in John van Druten's "I Am a Camera," she won her first Tony Award, which was not surprising. She startled theatergoers with her miraculous transformation, going from precocious Southern tomboy one season to desperate Berlin cabaret singer the next. PAGE: 1 | 2 |
 |
|
|
|
||||
| |||||
 |