Ellen Burstyn - Career

Career

Burstyn debuted on Broadway in 1957 and joined Lee Strasberg's The Actors Studio in New York City, New York, in 1967. In 1975, she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her performance in the comedy Same Time, Next Year (a role she would reprise in the film version in 1978). Until 1970, she was credited as Ellen McRae in nearly all her film and television appearances.

In the early to mid 1960s, Burstyn played Dr. Kate Bartok on the NBC television soap opera The Doctors. She worked on several primetime television shows of the 1960s, including guest appearances on Perry Mason, The Virginian, Maverick (opposite Robert Colbert as Brent Maverick), Wagon Train, 77 Sunset Strip, The Big Valley and Gunsmoke.

Burstyn received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress in 1971 for her role in the drama film The Last Picture Show and for Best Actress in 1973 for the horror film The Exorcist. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1974 for her performance in the drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, directed by Martin Scorsese. She also received Best Actress nominations in 1978 for Same Time, Next Year, in 1980 for the drama Resurrection, and for the drama Requiem for a Dream in 2000.

In 1977, she was a member of the jury at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival and in 1988, she was a member of the jury for the 38th Berlin International Film Festival. Burstyn hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live, a late-night sketch comedy and variety show, in 1980.

In 1986, she had her own ABC television situation comedy, The Ellen Burstyn Show costarring Megan Mullally as her daughter and Elaine Stritch as her mother; it was canceled after one season. From 2000 to 2002, Burstyn appeared in the CBS television drama That's Life. In 2006, she starred as an Episcopalian bishop in the controversial NBC comedy-drama series The Book of Daniel; although eight episodes were taped, it was canceled after four episodes.

In 2006, Burstyn appeared in the drama-romance film The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronofsky, with whom she worked in Requiem for a Dream. Since 2007, she has had an occasional recurring role on the HBO television drama series Big Love, playing the mother of polygamist wife Barbara Henrickson.

She provided a supporting role as the mother of two sons in the drama-romance film The Elephant King. The film originally premièred at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival but did not open in U.S. theaters until October 2008.

Burstyn starred in the Broadway production of Martin Tahse's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, based upon the novel of the same title by Allan Gurganus. The show opened and closed on November 17, 2003. Burstyn returned to the stage from March 18 – May 4, 2008, in an Off-Broadway production of Stephen Adly Guirgis's The Little Flower of East Orange, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in a co-production by LAByrinth Theater Company and The Public Theater; Burstyn played the role of Marie Therese.

In addition to her stage work, Burstyn portrayed former First Lady Barbara Bush in director Oliver Stone's biographical film W in 2008.

In 2009, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her portrayal of the bipolar estranged mother of Detective Elliot Stabler on NBC's police procedural Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

In 1990, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.