Lee Grant

Lee Grant (born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal; October 31, during the mid-1920s) is an American actress, documentarian, and director. In a career spanning over eight decades, she won an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Directors Guild of America Award, in addition to nominations for five Golden Globe Awards. She is one of the last surviving actors of the Hollywood blacklist era.

Having begun her career as a child performing in stage ballet, Grant rose to prominence as an adult on Broadway, making her debut in Detective Story (1949) as the Shoplifter. She reprised the role in the film adaptation (1951), earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and winning the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. Her career was interrupted when she was blacklisted for 12 years after refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. During this period, she worked as an acting teacher and took minor television and theater roles under pseudonyms.

Grant returned to prominence with her role in the television series Peyton Place (1965–1966), winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Drama Series. She appeared in supporting roles in In the Heat of the Night, Valley of the Dolls (both 1967), and The Landlord (1970), receiving Academy Award nominations for the latter, as well as Shampoo (1975) and Voyage of the Damned (1976), winning for Shampoo.

Grant transitioned to directing in the 1980s, focusing on documentaries and television films. She won the Directors Guild of America Award for Nobody’s Child (1986) while her film Down and Out in America (1986) tied for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, making her the only Academy Award-winning actor to direct an Academy Award-winning documentary. She continued directing into the 2000s while occasionally making acting appearances.