Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Ann Harris (born 19 September 1927) is an English actress. She is the recipient of such accolades as a Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and three Laurence Olivier Awards. Harris was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1986, and she won the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre in 2017.
This article is about the British actress. For the author of children's fiction, see Rosemary Harris (writer).
Rosemary Harris
Actress
1948–present
Harris began her stage career in 1948, before making her Broadway debut in 1952. For her New York stage work, she is a four-time Drama Desk Award winner and nine-time Tony Award nominee, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in for portraying Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter (1966). Her other Tony-nominated roles were in Old Times (1972), The Royal Family (1976), Heartbreak House (1984), Pack of Lies (1985), Hay Fever (1986), A Delicate Balance (1996), Waiting in the Wings (2000), and The Royal Family (2010).
She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her portrayal of George Sand the BBC serial Notorious Woman (1976), and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for playing Berta Palitz Weiss in the miniseries Holocaust (1978). For her performance in the historical drama film Tom & Viv (1994) she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Harris portrayed Aunt May in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007).
Early life[edit]
Harris was born on 19 September 1927 in Ashby, Suffolk,[1] the daughter of Enid Maude Frances (née Campion) and Stafford Berkeley Harris.[2][3] One of her grandmothers was from Kronstadt in the Habsburg Empire (today Romania).[4][5] Her father was in the Royal Air Force, and as a result, Harris' family lived in India during her early childhood.[6][7][8] She attended convent schools, and later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1951 to 1952.[9][10]
Personal life[edit]
Ehle and Harris settled in Winston-Salem, North Carolina,[7] where their daughter, Jennifer, was born in 1969. Jennifer Ehle followed in her mother's footsteps by becoming a noted film, television and Broadway actress.[33] Harris' archive is part of the performing arts collections at the Harry Ransom Center, which include her scripts, photographs, posters, correspondence, playbills, and other ephemera.[34]