Ellen Burstyn Net Worth

Ellen Burstyn's Quotes

• Acting feels like a congenital condition to me - it's in my genes.
• "I've wanted an Oscar since I was seven years old. It is the basis of all my secret fantasies." -- quoted by Robert Osborne in "Academy Awards 1974 Oscar Annual".
• It's unfortunate but our society is such that, for women in Hollywood, you get to a certain age and just fall off a cliff. But in my case, I refuse to die. I will hang on, by a little finger if necessary.
• "I thought it was fabulous. My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and, ultimately, I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don't even appear." Interview with Associated Press Radio, 2004, regarding her Emmy nomination for her performance in Mrs. Harris, in which she appeared for 14 seconds.
• The main way you grow is in deepening compassion. Somehow when you go through painful experiences you're more sympathetic to other people's experiences. After you've been working for awhile and discover how much material you have to call on, you end up saying, 'Oh, thank god I had an unhappy childhood!' I suppose there are some actors somewhere who have had a happy childhood. I just haven't met them yet.

Interesting Facts about Ellen Burstyn

1. Suffered a permanent spinal injury while filming The Exorcist (1973). In the sequence where she is thrown away from her possessed daughter, a harness jerked her hard away from the bed. She fell on her coccyx and screamed in pain, which was kept in the final version of the released film.
2. She wrote to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences to protest Liv Ullmann's elimination from Oscar contention in 1974 for her performance in Scener ur ett äktenskap (1973) (aka "Scenes from a Marriage"). AMPAS used a rule under which TV presentations must have appeared in movie theaters in the same year, to prevent Ullmann from being nominated. The result is that Burstyn won the Oscar for her performance in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974).
3. Chosen by People Magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World." [May 2001]
4. Born at 4:00 AM EST.
5. Wore 20- and 40-pound fat suits and prosthetic necks to play Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000).
6. Along with Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel, was named co-president of The Actor's Studio in 2000.
7. Served as co-artistic director for The Actor's Studio.
8. Turned down the lead role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) because she had a sick husband to care for.
9. Says she is often mistaken for fellow actress Louise Fletcher. People tell her she was great in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) (for which Fletcher won an Oscar). Fletcher reports being told frequently that she did a wonderful job in one of Burstyn's roles.
10. Received the National Board of Review's Career Achievement Award in December 2000 at Tavern on the Green.
11. An ordained minister, Burstyn does not consume alcohol or drink coffee and practices yoga.
12. Played her Academy Award nominated character from Same Time, Next Year (1978) on Broadway first and won a Tony Award as Best Actress (Dramatic) for the role in 1975. Burstyn was quoted in the book "On Women Turning 50" that she did not attend the Academy Awards ceremony the year she won as she felt she could not handle the pressure and attention if she won. After attending several later Oscar ceremonies at which she lost, she later regretted not being there to accept her award. Martin Scorsese, the director of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), accepted on her behalf.
13. Member of the Official Competition Jury at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival (1977). Member of jury at the Cannes Film Festival (1981). Co-head of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival (1988).
14. The character of Jean Harris seems to be a favorite for Burstyn. She was Emmy-nominated for the lead role as Jean Harris in the 1981 TV-movie, The People vs. Jean Harris (1981) and, in 2006, she was nominated as a supporting character (as an ex-lover of Jean Harris's lover) in the cable-movie based on the Harris case in Mrs. Harris (2005). Burstyn is perhaps the first actress to be nominated for a performance that is less than 1-minute long (in fact, it is approximately 15 seconds). She vied for the Emmy with fellow "Mrs. Harris" (and The Last Picture Show (1971)) co-star and Oscar-winner Cloris Leachman. Neither won.
15. Made a special Academy Awards appearance in 1998, at the The 70th Annual Academy Awards (1998), and participated in the "Oscar Family Album" sequence, along with many other former Academy Award winners.
16. Was listed as a potential nominee on the 2007 Razzie Award nominating ballot. She was suggested in the Worst Supporting Actress category for her performance in the film The Wicker Man (2006), however, she failed to receive a nomination.
17. Worked as an acrobat and as a model for paperback covers.
18. Godmother of her The Spitfire Grill (1996) co-star (Marcia Gay Harden)'s children.
19. Her third (and last) husband, Neil Burstyn was a bright, talented upcoming actor and writer (The Monkees (1966)). According to Ellen, he eventually degenerated into mental illness and became schizophrenic and violent. He left her just before she became a star. When she refused his pleas to get back together, he stalked and terrorized her for many years. He committed suicide in 1978.
20. In 2005, she was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Acting of the Savannah Film Festival.