Age: 93
female
Ellen Burstyn (born Edna Rae Gillooly; December 7, 1932) is an American actress. Known for her portrayals of complex women in dramas, she has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". She has also received a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award. Burstyn made her acting debut on Broadway in Fair Game in 1957 before winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Same Time, Next Year (1975). She earned the Academy Award for Best Actress as the widow Alice Hyatt in Martin Scorsese's romantic drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). Her other Oscar-nominated roles were in The Last Picture Show (1971), The Exorcist (1973), Same Time, Next Year (1978), Resurrection (1980), and Requiem for a Dream (2000). Her other notable films include Harry and Tonto (1974), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), W. (2008), Interstellar (2014), The Age of Adaline (2015), and Pieces of a Woman (2020). She won Primetime Emmy Awards for her guest role in the NBC legal drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2009) and supporting role in the USA Network political miniseries Political Animals (2013). Her other Emmy-nominated roles include Pack of Lies (1988), Mrs. Harris (2005), Big Love (2008), Draft Day, Flowers in the Attic (both 2014), and House of Cards (2016). 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 onstage.
Ellen Burstyn
Margret Ives
for Margret Ives in Great Big Beautiful Life
Suggested by user_81275
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century. When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game. One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over. Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition. But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room. And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.
