Overnight, Katharine Juliet Ross went from being an unknown actress to being nominated for an Academy Award. She co-starred with Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate and is best known for her performance as Elaine. She gradually changed into what many at the time referred to as a Hollywood bombshell.
Ross has up to this point had a lengthy and successful career. Although she has been married five times, her personal life hasn’t been as consistent. Thankfully, it was worth the wait for her fifth marriage to adored actor Sam Elliott.
Despite the fact that Katharine Ross hasn’t made any recent television appearances, she is much busier than just acting.
Katharine Ross was born on January 29, 1940, in Hollywood, California. The young girl’s parents were not actors, in contrast to many other Hollywood stars. Dudley, her father, was a citizen of the United States. S. a Navy officer and a reporter for the Associated Press. His family had to move around a lot as a result.
After leaving Virginia, they relocated to Palo Alto, California, and finally made their home in Walnut Creek, a neighborhood of San Francisco, where they had first started. Katharine was raised there and finished her high school education at Las Lomas in 1957.
Santa Rosa Junior College was where she went on from there, and it would later be very important to her future. She had her first acting experience at the school. Katharine Ross’s life was significantly impacted by the first theatrical performances she saw.
She took part in the school production of The King and I and later made the decision to pursue acting as a career. However, Katharine made the decision to leave school after only a year. Instead, she made the decision to relocate to a small apartment above a supermarket and submitted an application to The Actors Workshop in San Francisco.
For three years, Ross worked on honing her craft and improving as an actor. In the end, she was successful in getting a few minor TV roles. She was an excellent auditioner in addition to being a skilled actor.
I was the queen of the screen tests, Ross claimed to Life Magazine in 1968. Runs daily between San Francisco and Los Angeles at the appropriate time for the Workshop’s curtain time. I took on the roles of a variety of hit-and-run drivers, including a whiny, spoiled, and hardened teen. On Gunsmoke, I portrayed a sympathetic cripple with a clubfoot.
Joel Fabiani was a college sweetheart of Ross’s who she married for the first time in 1960. I’ll come back to the fact that he was the first of her five husbands.
Ross’ life underwent a significant change in the years after she wed Fabiani. She gained fame as a result of her numerous Western television appearances. She was a great beauty and fit the genre perfectly.
Although being chosen for multiple television shows may sound like a fantasy, Katharine Ross’ life wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. She was abused and exploited, just like many other workers in the field.
“I remember doing a screen test for The Young Lovers, the one-man film by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. to ever direct. When Peter Fonda couldn’t join me for the screen test, Chad Everett was brought in to take his place. He gave the screen test everything even though he was not aware that the part had already been cast. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. To get Sam’s desired look, I scheduled a number of appointments with a hairstylist. By the time they were finished, they had completely removed my hair. Finally, someone else was cast, according to Katharine, who spoke to Variety.
She added, “I’ll tell you what was unique about it. When the old studio system was on its deathbed and they were just starting to test new methods, the small $1 million budget films were seen as the way forward. And in the end, that signaled the beginning of a magnificent new era that ultimately gave rise to the independent film movement.
Katharine appeared on television for the first time in a 1962 Sam Benedict episode. She and James Stewart co-starred in the 1965 Civil War-themed movie Shenandoah. The following year, Ross signed a contract with Universal, and when she started filming her first lead role in the movie Games, director Mike Nichols noticed something special about the young, gifted actress.
He gave her the role of Elaine in The Graduate, a movie that also starred Dustin Hoffman, making it arguably her most well-known on-screen appearance.
“There was this actor from New York called Dustin Hoffman. The paleness of him suggested that he had rolled out from under a rock. All he wanted was to get back to the off-Broadway play he was in. I remember thinking, “Oh my God — this guy is dressed all in black, and he is white as a sheet,” on the first day, even though we eventually got to know and enjoy each other, Ross remembered in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.
You are aware that Gene Hackman, Dustin’s former roommate, was cast in the role of my father. He made a bow, but I’m not sure exactly what took place.
Ross’s initial notoriety came from the classic movie The Graduate. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year in addition to winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
The conclusion to The Graduate remains a mystery. Nobody expected the look on their faces as they boarded a city bus, despite the fact that Benjamin had prevented Elaine from attending the wedding.
Most of them thought the heartwarming tale of two people in love who were forcibly separated before being dramatically reunited would have a good ending. The two, however, remained silent.
What then, in Katharine’s opinion, happened between the two of them? It turns out that the conclusion was not predetermined.
The general rule is to keep acting in a scene until the director tells you to stop. Mike remained silent for a very long time. The conversation came to an end, but the camera kept rolling. “I think Elaine got off at the next station,” she said, “how do I feel.
Katharine won yet another important job in 1969. In the now-famous Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, she appeared in one of cinema’s most famous scenes while perched atop a pedal-assisted actor’s bicycle.
Ross had appeared in the same movie as her lifelong love by the time they finished production, though she was unaware of it then.
At least when Ross first started her job, her personal life was quite the roller coaster. Katharine has been married five times, and her most recent partnership has been going strong for over 40 years.
As reported, Ross wed Joel Fabiani for the first time in 1960. Ross soon wed John Marion in 1964 after their brief, two-year union. Three years passed during their marriage. In 1969, she wed Conrad Hall for a third time; he was the director of photography for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Following their divorce in 1973, Ross wed Gaetano “Tom” Lisi the following year.
When the couple made the decision to separate in 1979, Katharine Ross also met the love of her life.
Sam Elliott, who played Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, had a crush on Katharine even before the filming of the scene. He chose not to approach her because he was only a movie extra. According to the now-famous actor in 2018, all he could do was “just watch Katharine come and go. ”.
I co-wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with my wife, Katharine Ross, but I didn’t dare approach her then. She played the lead role. I was a glorified extra in a bar scene, a shadow on the wall,” Elliott claimed to AARP The Magazine in 2015.
But it was a terrific chance because I got to watch them make the movie. After all, I was a contract player with Fox and an extra on the show. While they were in Los Angeles, I spent a lot of time in a dim corner observing Katharine and the others at work, he recalled to The Oklahoman.
Ten years would pass before Sam and Katharine would run into each other again. The Legacy, a Gothic horror film in which both of them had roles, was their first collaboration. Sam Elliott didn’t want to attend the London premiere since he didn’t believe the movie was very good. His “smitten” feeling for Katharine ultimately convinced him to go.
He had a peculiar baritone voice, according to the actress, and had attractive, rugged looks.
According to her, “probably all that and more,” she told The Mercury News. “While we were working together, another issue arose. Finally, here we are.
On September 17, 1984, Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross welcomed their daughter, Cleo Rose Elliott, only four months after getting hitched. As a musician, Cleo planned to work in the entertainment industry. And looking back, perhaps it was better that way.
She told The Malibu Times that her parents were fully behind her musical endeavors. They’re just relieved that I don’t want to work in acting.
After The Legacy, Katharine Ross and Sam Elliott continued to work together on screen. The two have shared many on-screen appearances, including Travis McGee, Houston: The Legend of Texas, and Conagher, all of which they starred together. The latter has been dubbed “one of the highlights of my career” by Elliott. ”.
Ross played his ex-wife, and Elliott played an aging Western movie star, in the 2017 film The Hero.
“I think we just like making movies, and having that creative experience together is the best,” Elliott told the Los Angeles Times in 2016.
It’s just enjoyable. Going home with someone you work with has a different energy than going home with someone you don’t. Everything about the experience has been great.
Ross and Elliott split their time between residences in Oregon and California. The two went to the Screen Actors Guild Awards together earlier this year. Katharine hasn’t acted in any films or television shows in recent years.
Her output has increased, though, and she has published a number of children’s books.
The marriage between her and Sam has been challenging, but it has all been worthwhile. And it appears that their long-lasting relationship has one secret.
“In my opinion, how much we care about one another ultimately determines how things turn out. It also requires desiring to get married, which is, in my opinion, more crucial than everything else, Sam said. The three things I most wished to achieve were marriage, having children, and a successful acting career. And the fact that I possess both is an embarrassment of riches.
Please ask your loved ones to share this article on Facebook so that we can honor the wonderful Katharine Ross. Even though it may not accurately reflect their daily lives, the couple’s main priority is discovering new things together.
