Lee Grant

His name at birth was Lyova Haskell Rosenthal, to later change it to Lee Grant, a compilation of the surnames of two generals of the American Civil War. She was born in New York City, the daughter of an Eastern European Jewish family. She began as a dancer at the New York Metropolitan Opera at the early age of four and throughout her childhood studied dance and acting.

In the 1950s he began to shine on Broadway theaters with his debut in Brigade 21 . It would precisely be released with that same work also in the cinema just one year later and by the hand of one of the greats, director William Wyler. With Squad 21 garnered rave reviews and her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Months later she was awarded at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Detective Story . During those years the famous and feared witch hunt was taking place , and Grant was called to testify before the anti-American activities committee to accuse her husband, the writer Arnold Manoff. She refused to do so and entered the blacklist directly. From that moment on, her job offers decreased, so she focused again on the theater. Although she never left the big screen, in 1959 she acted in the film In the Middle of the Night ; and in 1967 she in Norman Jewison’s thriller In the Heat of the Night . In addition, he would obtain an Emmy in 1966 for his participation in the successful series Peyton Place .

He worked on the unsuccessful Caught in Space (1969) by John Sturges and had a brief role in the western Cheat Day (1970), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Kirk Douglas. That same year Grant would receive a second nomination for the golden statuette for his comedic role in The Landlord, a hilarious film that tells how a bored billionaire buys and moves into a block of flats in order to evict all the tenants. His intervention in the Colombo series was also highly recognized . The Academy finally awarded her the Best Supporting Actress Award in 1975 for her role as Warren Beatty’s lover in the comedy Shampoo .. In the following edition of the awards, she was also nominated in the same category, this time for Voyage of the Damned .

In 1978 she tried her luck in the horror genre and starred alongside William Holden in Damien’s Curse , an entertaining continuation of the plot started with The Prophecy , where she was the aunt of the wicked protagonist. After this, it can be said that the actress went through a rather irregular stage within her filmography, working on films as weak as The Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981) and The Knave and His Garment (1980). She highlights Mano de oro (1987), where she shared the bill with great colleagues such as Tommy Lee Jones or Diane Lane, among many others. In the following years, she took part in very little valued films such as El cielo pronximamente(1991), directed by a young Albert Brooks, or Dr. T and the women (2000), a film by Robert Altman and with Richard Gere as the protagonist that did not have a good reception.

Just before retiring, she was lucky enough to work, albeit very briefly, on Mulholland Drive , an interesting work by David Lynch released in 2001. And we must not forget Grant’s facet as a documentary director, whether for the big screen or for for television. The most important, and an Oscar winner in 1986, was Down and out in America , in which she addresses the issue of employment in the United States.