JULIE ANN HARRIS, A METHOD ACTOR FOR CLASSIC ROLES

Today, The Grandma continues her communication skills course with Els Tintorers. They have been talking about communication in cinema and she has talked about Julie Harris, the American actress well-known by her Method Acting who was born on a day like today in 1925.

Method Acting is a range of training and rehearsal techniques that seek to encourage sincere and emotionally expressive performances, as formulated by a number of different theatre practitioners. These techniques are built on Stanislavski's system, developed by the Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski and captured in his books An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, and Creating a Role.

Among those who have contributed to the development of the Method, three teachers are associated with having set the standard of its success, each emphasizing different aspects of the approach: Lee Strasberg (the psychological aspects), Stella Adler (the sociological aspects), and Sanford Meisner (the behavioral aspects). The approach was first developed when they worked together at the Group Theatre in New York.

More information: Mental Floss

Julia Ann Harris (December 2, 1925-August 24, 2013) was an American actress. Renowned for her classical and contemporary stage work, she received five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play.

Harris debuted on Broadway in 1945, against the wishes of her mother, who wanted her to be a society debutante. Harris was acclaimed for her performance as an isolated 12-year-old girl in the 1950 play The Member of the Wedding, a role she reprised in the 1952 film of the same name, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1951, her range was demonstrated as Sally Bowles in the original production of I Am a Camera, for which she won her first Tony award. She subsequently appeared in the 1955 film version.

Harris gave acclaimed performances in films including The Haunting (1963), and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), in which she played opposite Marlon Brando. A method actor, she won Tony awards for The Lark (1956), Forty Carats (1969), The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1973), and The Belle of Amherst (1977). She was also a Grammy Award winner and a three time Emmy Award winner.

Harris was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, received the National Medal of Arts in 1994, and the 2002 Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award.

More information: Breaking Character Magazine

Julia Ann Harris was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the daughter of Elsie L., a nurse, and William Pickett Harris, an investment banker and authority on zoology. She had an older brother, William, and a younger brother, Richard. She graduated from Grosse Pointe Country Day School, which later merged with two others to form the University Liggett School. In New York City, she attended The Hewitt School.

As a teenager, she also trained at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp in Colorado with Charlotte Perry, a mentor who encouraged Harris to apply to the Yale School of Drama, which she soon attended for a year.

Harris was an early member of Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio and was able to successfully use the techniques of method acting, which have been found difficult to shine with in female roles.

Harris's screen debut was in 1952, repeating her Broadway success as the lonely teenaged girl Frankie in Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Director Elia Kazan cast her in East of Eden (1955) opposite James Dean in his first major screen role. She played the ethereal Eleanor Lance in The Haunting (1963), director Robert Wise's screen adaptation of a novel by Shirley Jackson. Other notable films Harris appeared in during the 1960s include Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), Harper (with Paul Newman) (1966), and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). Another noteworthy film appearance was the World War II drama The Hiding Place (1975).

Harris died on August 24, 2013, at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts. Ben Brantley, theater critic for The New York Times, considered her the actress who towered most luminously... rather like a Statue of Liberty for Broadway. Broadway theaters dimmed their lights for one minute in honor of Harris.

More information: Roger Ebert

You had to make sure that the tone of your dress
was not the same tone as the curtains, for instance.

Julie Harris