# Julie Harris

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

| Year | Title | Role | Venue |
| 1945 | It's a Gift | Atlanta | |
| 1946 | Henry IV, Part 2 | | |
| 1946 | Oedipus Rex | | |
| 1946–1947 | The Playboy of the Western World | Nelly | |
| 1947 | Alice in Wonderland | White Rabbit | alternate |
| 1948 | Macbeth | Witch | |
| 1948 | Sundown Beach | Ida Mae | |
| 1948–1949 | The Young and Fair | Nancy Gear | |
| 1949 | Magnolia Alley | Angel Tuttle | |
| 1949 | Montserrat | Felisa | |
| 1950–1951 | The Member of the Wedding | Frankie Addams | |
| 1951–1952 | I Am a Camera | Sally Bowles | |
| 1954 | Mademoiselle Colombe | Colombe | |
| 1955–1956 | The Lark | Joan | |
| 1959–1960 | The Warm Peninsula | Ruth Arnold | |
| 1960 | King John | Blanch of Spain | |
| 1960 | Romeo and Juliet | Juliet | |
| 1960 | Little Moon of Alban | Bridgid Mary Mangan | |
| 1961–1962 | A Shot in the Dark | Josefa Lantenay | |
| 1963–1964 | Marathon '33 | June | |
| 1964 | Hamlet | Ophelia | |
| 1964–1965 | Ready When You Are, C.B.! | Annie | |
| 1965–1966 | Skyscraper | Georgina | |
| 1968–1970 | Forty Carats | Ann Stanley | |
| 1971 | And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little | Anna Reardon | |
| 1972 | Voices | Claire | |
| 1972–1973 | The Last of Mrs. Lincoln | Mary Todd Lincoln | |
| 1973–1974 | The au Pair Man | Mrs. Rogers | |
| 1974–1975 | In Praise of Love | Lydia Cruttwell | |
| 1976 | The Belle of Amherst | Emily Dickinson | |
| 1979 | On Golden Pond | | |
| 1979 | Break a Leg | Gertie Kessel | |
| 1980–1981 | Mixed Couples | Clarice | |
| 1983 | Under The Ilex | Dora de Houghton Carrington Partridge | |
| 1988 | Bronte | Charlotte Brontë | |
| 1989–1990 | Love Letters | Melissa Gardiner | |
| 1990 | Driving Miss Daisy | Daisy Werthan | |
| 1991 | Lucifer's Child | Isak Dinesen | |
| 1992 | Dear Liar | Mrs. Patrick Campbell | |
| 1993 | The Fiery Furnace | Eunice | |
| 1994 | Exile in Jerusalem | Elsa | |
| 1994–1995 | The Glass Menagerie | Amanda Wingfield | |
| 1996 | Sonya | Sonya Tolstoy | |
| 1997 | The Road to Mecca | Miss Helen | |
| 1997 | The Gin Game | Fonsia Dorsey | |
| 1998 | Scent of the Roses | Annalise Morant | |
| 2000 | All My Sons | Kate Keller | |
| 2001 | Fossils | | |

### Films

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1952 | The Member of the Wedding | Frances "Frankie" Addams | Film debut |
| 1955 | East of Eden | Abra Bacon | |
| 1955 | I Am a Camera | Sally Bowles | |
| 1957 | The Truth About Women | Helen Cooper | |
| 1958 | Sally's Irish Rogue | Sally Hamil | |
| 1962 | Requiem for a Heavyweight | Grace Miller | |
| 1963 | The Haunting | Eleanor "Nell" Lance | |
| 1964 | Hamlet | Ophelia | |
| 1966 | Harper | Betty Fraley | |
| 1966 | You're a Big Boy Now | Miss Nora Thing | |
| 1967 | Reflections in a Golden Eye | Alison Langdon | |
| 1968 | The Split | Gladys | |
| 1968 | Journey to Midnight | Leona Gillings | "The Indian Spirit Guide" |
| 1970 | The People Next Door | Gerrie Mason | |
| 1975 | The Hiding Place | Betsie Ten Boom | |
| 1976 | Voyage of the Damned | Alice Fienchild | |
| 1979 | The Bell Jar | Mrs. Greenwood | |
| 1983 | Brontë | Charlotte Brontë | |
| 1985 | Crimewave | | Uncredited |
| 1986 | Nutcracker: The Motion Picture | Clara (voice) | |
| 1988 | Gorillas in the Mist | Roz Carr | |
| 1992 | Housesitter | Edna Davis | |
| 1993 | The Dark Half | Reggie Delesseps | |
| 1996 | Carried Away | Joseph's Mother | |
| 1997 | Bad Manners | Professor Harper | |
| 1998 | Passage to Paradise | Martha McGraw | |
| 1998 | The First of May | Carlotta | |
| 2006 | The Way Back Home | Jo McMillen | |
| 2008 | The Golden Boys | Melodeon Player | |
| 2009 | The Lightkeepers | Mrs. Deacon | |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1948–1949 | Actors Studio | | 4 episodes |
| 1951 | Starlight Theatre | Bernice | episode: "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" |
| 1951–1953 | Goodyear Television Playhouse | | 2 episodes |
| 1955 | The United States Steel Hour | Shevawn | episode: "A Wind from the South" |
| 1956 | The Good Fairy | Lu | TV movie |
| 1957 | The Lark | Joan of Arc | TV movie |
| 1958 | Little Moon of Alban | Bridgid Mary Mangan | TV movie |
| 1958 | Johnny Belinda | Belinda | TV movie |
| 1959 | A Doll's House | Nora Helmer | TV movie |
| 1960 | NBC Sunday Showcase | Francesca | episode: "Turn the Key Deftly" |
| 1960–1961 | DuPont Show of the Month | Mattie Silver/Julia | 2 episodes |
| 1961 | Play of the Week | | episode: "He Who Gets Slapped" |
| 1961 | The Heiress | Catherine Sloper | TV movie |
| 1961 | The Power and the Glory | Maria (Priest's Mistress) | TV movie |
| 1961 | Victoria Regina | Queen Victoria | TV movie |
| 1963 | Pygmalion | Eliza Dolittle | TV movie |
| 1964 | Little Moon of Alban | Brigid Mary Mangan | TV movie |
| 1964 | Kraft Suspense Theatre | Lucy Bram | episode: "The Roborioz Ring" |
| 1965 | The Holy Terror | Florence Nightingale | TV movie |
| 1965 | Rawhide | Emma Teall | episode: "The Calf Women" |
| 1965 | Laredo | Annamay | episode: "Rendezvous at Arillo" |
| 1966 | Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre | Isobel Cain/Vicky Cain | episode: "Nightmare" |
| 1967 | Anastasia | Anastasia | TV movie |
| 1967–1968 | Tarzan | Charity Jones | 4 episodes |
| 1968 | Garrison's Gorillas | Therese Donet | episode: "Run from Death" |
| 1968 | Run for Your Life | Lucrece Lawrence | episode: "The Rape of Lucrece" |
| 1968 | Daniel Boone | Faith | episode: "Faith's Way" |
| 1968 | Bonanza | Sarah Carter | episode: "A Dream to Dream" |
| 1968 | Journey to the Unknown | Leona Gillings | episode: "The Indian Spirit Guide" |
| 1968 | The Big Valley | Jennie Hall | episode: "A Stranger Everywhere" |
| 1969–1970 | The Name of the Game | Verna Ward/Ruth 'Doc' Harmon | 2 episodes |
| 1970 | House on Greenapple Road | Leona Miller | TV movie |
| 1970 | How Awful About Allan | Katherine | TV movie |
| 1971 | The Virginian | Jenny | episode: "Wolf Track" |
| 1972 | Home for the Holidays | Elizabeth Hall Morgan | TV movie |
| 1973 | Thicker than Water | Nellie Paine | 9 episodes |
| 1973 | Medical Center | Helen | episode: "The Guilty" |
| 1973 | Columbo | Karen Fielding | episode: "Any Old Port in a Storm" |
| 1973 | Hawkins | Janet Hubbard | episode: "Die, Darling, Die" |
| 1973 | The Evil Touch | Aunt Carrie/Jenny | 2 episodes |
| 1974 | The Greatest Gift | Elizabeth Holvak | TV movie |
| 1975 | Long Way Home | Elizabeth Holvak | TV movie |
| 1975 | The Family Holvak | Elizabeth Holvak | 10 episodes |
| 1975 | Match Game | Herself (panelist) | 6 total episodes (1 for syndication) |
| 1976 | The Last of Mrs. Lincoln | Mary Todd Lincoln | TV movie |
| 1976 | The Belle of Amherst | Emily Dickinson | TV movie |
| 1978 | Stubby Pringle's Christmas | Georgia Henderson | TV movie |
| 1979 | Backstairs at the White House | Mrs. Helen 'Nellie' Taft | miniseries |
| 1979 | Tales of the Unexpected | Mrs. Bixby/Mrs. Foster | 2 episodes |
| 1979 | The Gift | Anne Devlin | TV movie |
| 1980–1987 | Knots Landing | Lilimae Clements | 165 episodes |
| 1986 | Annihilator | Girl | TV movie |
| 1986 | Family Ties | Margaret | episode: "The Freshman and the Senior" |
| 1987 | The Love Boat | Irene Culver | episode: "Who Killed Maxwell Thorn?" |
| 1988 | The Woman He Loved | Alice | TV movie |
| 1988 | Too Good to Be True | Margaret Berent | TV movie |
| 1988 | The Christmas Wife | Iris | TV movie |
| 1989 | Single Women Married Men | Lucille Frankyl | TV movie |
| 1990 | The Civil War | Mary Chestnut (voice) | miniseries; 9 episodes |
| 1993 | Vanished Without a Trace | Odessa Ray | TV movie |
| 1993 | When Love Kills: The Seduction of John Hearn | Alice Hearn | TV movie |
| 1994 | Scarlett | Eleanor Butler | miniseries |
| 1994 | One Christmas | Sook | TV movie |
| 1995 | Secrets | Caroline Phelan | TV movie |
| 1995 | Lucifer's Child | Isak Dinesen | TV movie |
| 1996 | Little Surprises | Ethel | TV short |
| 1996 | The Christmas Tree | Sister Anthony | TV movie |
| 1997 | Ellen Foster | Leonora Nelson | TV movie |
| 1998 | The Outer Limits | Hera | episode: "Lithia" |
| 1999 | Love Is Strange | Sylvia McClain | TV movie |
| 1999 | Not for Ourselves Alone | Susan B. Anthony (voice) | TV documentary |

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
| Academy Awards |||||
| 1952 | Best Actress | The Member of the Wedding | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards |||||
| 1955 | Best Foreign Actress | I Am a Camera | Nominated |
| Emmy Awards |||||
| 1956 | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie | The United States Steel Hour | Nominated |
| 1959 | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie | Little Moon of Alban | Won |
| 1960 | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie | DuPont Show of the Month | Nominated |
| 1962 | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie | Victoria Regina | Won |
| 1965 | Outstanding Individual Achievement | The Holy Terror | Nominated |
| 1967 | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie | Anastasia | Nominated |
| 1977 | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie | The Last of Mrs. Lincoln | Nominated |
| 1982 | Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series | Knots Landing | Nominated |
| 1988 | Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie | The Woman He Loved | Nominated |
| 1998 | Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie | Ellen Foster | Nominated |
| 1999 | Outstanding Voice-Over Performance | Not for Ourselves Alone | Won |
| Grammy Awards |||||
| 1968 | Best Children's Music Album | Magic Fishbone/Happy Prince/Potted Princess | Nominated |
| 1972 | Best Children's Music Album | The Story of Sheherazade | Nominated |
| 1978 | Best Spoken Word Recording | The Belle of Amherst | Won |
| Tony Awards |||||
| 1952 | Best Actress in a Play | I Am a Camera | Won |
| 1956 | Best Actress in a Play | The Lark | Won |
| 1964 | Best Actress in a Play | Marathon '33 | Nominated |
| 1966 | Best Actress in a Musical | Skyscraper | Nominated |
| 1969 | Best Actress in a Play | Forty Carats | Won |
| 1973 | Best Actress in a Play | The Last of Mrs. Lincoln | Won |
| 1974 | Best Actress in a Play | The au Pair Man | Nominated |
| 1977 | Best Actress in a Play | The Belle of Amherst | Won |
| 1991 | Best Actress in a Play | Lucifer's Child | Nominated |
| 1997 | Best Actress in a Play | The Gin Game | Nominated |