Estelle Parsons

It was not by chance that the actress received the Oscar for best supporting actress, thanks to her character as Blanche inBonnie and Clyde . It was practically the first appearance of her on the big screen and she left a deep mark. It would be for something. And although she would later succeed in more roles for film and television, the actress would stand out especially as an acting teacher and director of the legendary Actor’s Studio in New York. In short, that she knows how to act for a while.

Estelle Margaret Parsons was born on November 20, 1927 in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The daughter of a Swedish immigrant and an American, she studied law at Boston University before beginning a career as a singer in the early 1950s. A little later, with the art bug gnawing at her insides, she went to live in New York, and there he began to write for the theater and interpret some roles for the Off Broaway stages. In 1963 she received the Theater World Award for her performance of “Whisper into My Good Ear / Mrs. Dally Has a Lover”. It was the beginning of an idyll that lasted her entire life, as the actress achieved many stage successes and has been nominated for 4 Tony Awards, the most prestigious in the world of the scene. In this field, she has also been in charge of directing several works, mainlyWilliam Shakespeare , until reaching the direction of the Actor’s Studio for five years, from 1998 to 2003. In her personal life Estelle divorced Richard Gehman in 1958, whom she had married five years earlier, and in 1983 she married for the second time, with Peter Zimroth. The actress has had three children.

His first role in the cinema was very slight, in the drama Ladybug Ladybug (1963), after which he appeared sporadically in television series without much interest. In 1967, when the actress was already 40 years old, she got the role of her life inBonnie and Clyde , and he didn’t miss it. So much so, that his next film wasRaquel, Raquel , directed the following year by Paul Newman , and the Academy once again fell in love with her talent, so they nominated her a second time thanks to her performance as Calla Mackie. The statuette did not go to her this time (but to Ruth Gordon , forRosemary’s Baby ), but the future looked very promising.

But what is life, Estelle Parsons would never achieve similar success again. In fact, she immediately disappeared from the map of major movies. She played secondary roles in films of interest, but they never became enduring works. Among them are the dramaI watch the road (1970) or the crazy comedyWhat the hell is going on here? (1974). In 1980 she came close to playing Mrs. Voorhees in the iconicFriday the 13th And in 1982 she stood out as the protagonist inCome Along With Me , a telefilm directed by Joanne Woodward , with whom he had worked on the hitRachel, Rachel .

But Estella Parsons’s career was only developed in television series, telefilms without much packaging and very small roles in discreet films, such asDick Tracy (1990),Only them… the boys on one side (1995) or An FBI cat (1997). On television he did stand out in some series, especially inRoseanne (1989), which ran for eight years or the most recentEmpire Falls (2005), a prestigious miniseries full of familiar faces. And six years later he returns to the big screen at the hands of Al Pacino withWilde Salome , update of the play that Oscar Wilde dedicated to the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist.