Katharine Ross Biography

Katharine Juliet Ross (born January 29, 1940) is an American film and stage actress. She starred in three of the most popular films of the 1960s and 1970s: as Elaine Robinson in The Graduate (1967), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress; as Etta Place in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress; and The Stepford Wives (1975). She won a Golden Globe for Voyage of the Damned (1976).

Early life

Ross was born in Hollywood, California, on January 29, 1940 (though many sources cite 1942 or 1943) when her father, Dudley Ross, was in the Navy. He had also worked for the Associated Press. Her family later settled in Walnut Creek, California, east of San Francisco, and she graduated from Las Lomas High School in 1957. Ross was a keen horse rider in her youth and was friends with Casey Tibbs, a rodeo rider.

Career

She studied at Santa Rosa Junior College for one year (1957-1958), where she was introduced to acting via a production of The King and I. She dropped out of the course and moved to San Francisco to study acting. She joined The Actors Workshop and was with them for three years (1959-1962) working as an understudy; for one role in Jean Genet's The Balcony she appeared nude on stage, and in 1964 she was cast by John Houseman as Cordelia in a production of King Lear. While at the Workshop, she began acting in television series in Los Angeles to earn extra money. She was brought to Hollywood by Metro, dropped, then picked up by Universal.

She unsuccessfully auditioned for West Side Story (1961), then her first television role was in Sam Benedict in 1962. She was picked up by agent Wally Hiller, and in 1964, Ross appeared in episodes of Arrest and Trial, The Virginian, Gunsmoke, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ("Dividing Wall" episode, 1963). She screen tested for The Young Lovers and made her first film, Shenandoah, followed by a starring role opposite James Garner in Mister Buddwing with MGM in 1965. In 1966, she appeared in the episode "To Light a Candle" of Barry Sullivan's NBC Western The Road West.

That year, she starred in the film Games. Then came her breakout roles in two of cinema's most popular films, Elaine Robinson in The Graduate (1967) and Etta Place in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). After appearing as Dustin Hoffman's character's girlfriend Elaine in The Graduate, a part for which she received an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe as New Star of the Year, she said that "I'm not a movie star...that system is dying and I'd like to help it along." She also won a BAFTA for her part as an Indian in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969). She turned down several roles (including Jacqueline Bisset's role in Bullitt) before accepting the part in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and then turned down several more roles, including a part in The Towering Inferno.

She was dropped by Universal in the spring of 1969 for refusing to play a stewardess in Airport, another role that went to Jacqueline Bisset. She preferred stage acting, and returned to the small playhouses in Los Angeles for much of the 1970s. One of her best-known roles came in 1975's The Stepford Wives, for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress. She reprised the role of Etta Place in a 1976 ABC TV movie, Wanted: The Sundance Woman, and then won a Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her part in 1977's Voyage of the Damned;

She starred in several television movies from the late 1970s, including Murder by Natural Causes in 1979 with Hal Holbrook, Barry Bostwick and Richard Anderson, Rodeo Girl in 1980, Murder in Texas in 1981, and the 1980s television series The Colbys opposite Charlton Heston as Francesca Scott Colby. She played Donnie's therapist in the 2001 film Donnie Darko. Her last acting role to date was as Carly Schroeder's grandmother in the 2006 independent film Eye of the Dolphin. Ross has established herself as an author, publishing several children's books.

In January 2015 she appeared at the Malibu Playhouse in the first of a series titled "A Conversation With", interviewed by Steven Gaydos. That February, she appeared with her husband Sam Elliott in Love Letters, also at the Malibu Playhouse.

Personal life

Ross has been married five times. Her first marriage was to actor Joel Fabiani from 1960 to 1962. She was then married to John Marion 1964 to 1967. In 1969, Ross married the triple Oscar-winning cinematographer Conrad L. Hall after meeting him on the set of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They separated in 1973. She was married to Gaetano "Tom" Lisi from 1975 to 1979; they met when he was a chauffeur and technician on the set of The Stepford Wives.

Ross is now married to actor Sam Elliott, whom she met when they co-starred in the 1978 film The Legacy (one of his first film roles was as "Card Player #2" in the opening scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). The couple married in 1984 and have a daughter, Cleo Rose Elliott, born in 1984.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1965	Shenandoah	Ann	With Jimmy Stewart.
1966	The Singing Nun	Nicole Arlien
1966	Mister Buddwing	Janet
1967	The Longest Hundred Miles	Laura Huntington
1967	Games	Jennifer Montgomery
1967	The Graduate	Elaine Robinson	Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actress Laurel Award for Female Supporting Performance Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated"?BAFTA Film Award for Newcomer to Leading Film Roles
1968	Hellfighters	Tish Buckman	With John Wayne.
1969	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid	Etta Place	BAFTA Award for Best Actress (also for Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here)
1969	Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here	Lola	With Robert Redford. BAFTA Award for Best Actress (also for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
1970	Fools	Anais Appleton
1972	Get to Know Your Rabbit	Nameless Woman
1972	They Only Kill Their Masters	Kate
1974	Chance and Violence	Docteur Constance Weber	(Limited release)
1975	The Stepford Wives	Joanna Eberhart	Saturn Award for Best Actress
1976	Voyage of the Damned	Mira Houser	Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1978	The Betsy	Sally Hardeman
1978	The Swarm	Helena
1978	The Legacy	Margaret Walsh	With Sam Elliott.
1980	The Final Countdown	Laurel Scott
1982	Wrong Is Right	Sally Blake
1986	Red Headed Stranger	Laurie	(Limited release)
1991	A Climate for Killing	Grace Hines	(Straight to video)
1997	Home Before Dark	Rose	(Straight to television)
2001	Donnie Darko	Dr. Lilian Thurman	(Limited release)
2002	Don't Let Go	Charlene Stevens	(Unreleased)
2006	Eye of the Dolphin	Lucy	(Limited release)
2013	Wini + George	Wini	(short)
2017	The Hero

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1962	Sam Benedict	Teresa Parelli	Episode: "A Split Week in San Quentin"
1963	Kraft Suspense Theatre	Janet Bollington	Episode: "Are There Any More Out There Like You?"
1963	The Lieutenant	Elizabeth	Episode: "Fall from a White Horse"
1963	The Alfred Hitchcock Hour	Carol Brandt	Episode: "The Dividing Wall"
1964	Arrest and Trial	Marietta Valera	Episode: "Signals of an Ancient Flame"
1964	Ben Casey	Marie Costeau	Episode: "The Evidence of Things Not Seen"
1964	The Virginian	Jenny Hendricks	Episode: "The Dark Challenge"
1964 1965	Gunsmoke	Susan Liz Beaumont	Episode: "Crooked Mile" Episode: "The Lady"
1965	Mr. Novak	Mrs. Bellway	Episode: "Faculty Follies: Part 2"
1965	Wagon Train	Bonnie Brooke	Episode: "The Bonnie Brooke Story"
1965	Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre	Gloria	Episode: "Terror Island"
1965	Run for Your Life	Laura Beaumont	Episode: "The Cold, Cold War of Paul Bryan"
1965	The Big Valley	Maria	Episode: "Winner Lose All"
1965	The Loner	Sue Sullivan	Episode: "Widow on the Evening Stage"
1965	The Wild Wild West	Sheila Parnell	Episode: "The Night of the Double-Edged Knife"
1966	Preview Tonight	Asenath	Episode: "Great Bible Adventures: Seven Rich Years and Seven Lean"
1966	The Road West	Rachel Adams	Episode: "To Light a Candle"
1976	Origins of the Mafia	Rosa Mastrangelo	Mini-series
1976	Wanted: The Sundance Woman	Etta Place / Mrs. Sundance / Annie Martin / Bonnie Doris	TV movie
1979	Murder by Natural Causes	Allison Sinclair	TV movie
1980	Rodeo Girl	Sammy Garrett	TV movie
1981	Murder in Texas	Ann Kurth Hill	TV movie with Sam Elliott.
1982	Wait Until Dark	Suzy Hendrix	TV movie
1982	Marian Rose White	Nurse Bonnie MacNeil	TV movie
1982	The Shadow Riders	Kate Connery/Sister Katherine	TV movie with Sam Elliott.
1983	Travis McGee	Gretel Howard	TV movie with Sam Elliott.
1983	Secrets of a Mother and Daughter	Ava Price	TV movie
1985-1987	The Colbys	Francesca 'Frankie' Scott Colby Hamilton Langdon	49 episodes
1986	Gone To Texas aka Houston: The Legend of Texas	Susannah Dickinson	TV movie with Sam Elliott.
1988	ABC Afterschool Specials	Maggie's Mother	Episode: "Tattle: When to Tell on a Friend"
1991	Conagher	Evie Teale	TV movie with Sam Elliott.
2004	Capital City	N/A	Unaired pilot

Books

• Grover, Grover come on over!
• The Teeny, Tiny Farm
• Bear Island
• The Baby Animals' Party
• The Fuzzytail Friends' Great Egg Hunt
• The Little Quiet Book (with Jean Hirashima, Random House)
• The Little Noise Book (with Jean Hirashima, Random House)
• Open the Door, Little Dinosaur (with Norman Gorbaty)
• Twinkle, Twinkle The Little Bug (with Tom Cooke)
• Sweetie and Petie (with Lisa McCue)