Early years and education Julia Ann Harris was born on December 2, 1925, in
Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the daughter of Elsie L. (née Smith), 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. In 2007, Yale bestowed an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree upon Harris. As a founding member of
Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio, Harris studied
method acting, which emphasized psychology and emotions, and although it was strongly associated with male actors, she was able to successfully employ its techniques.
1945–1959: Early roles in
East of Eden (1955) In 1952, Harris won her first Best Actress Tony Award for originating the role of insouciant
Sally Bowles in
I Am a Camera, the stage version of
Christopher Isherwood's
Goodbye to Berlin (later adapted as the Broadway musical
Cabaret (1966) and as the 1972
film, with
Liza Minnelli as Sally). Harris repeated her stage role in the film version of
I Am a Camera (1955). Harris's screen debut was in 1952, repeating her Broadway success as the lonely teenaged girl Frankie in
Carson McCullers's
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. Harris was nominated for 11
Primetime Emmy Awards for her television work, winning three. She starred as Nora Helmer opposite
Christopher Plummer in ''
A Doll's House'' (1959), a 90-minute television adaptation of
Henrik Ibsen's
play. She made more appearances in leading roles on the
Hallmark Hall of Fame than any other actress, also appearing in two different adaptations of the play
Little Moon of Alban, her performance in the 1958 TV movie of the same name earning her the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.
1960–1989: Breakthrough and acclaim '' (1963) She played the ethereal Eleanor Lance in
The Haunting (1963), director
Robert Wise's screen adaptation of a novel by
Shirley Jackson. Another cast member recalled Harris refusing to socialize with the other actors while not on set, later explaining that she had done so as a method of emphasizing the alienation from the other characters experienced by her character in the film. 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). Her second Emmy win came for her role as
Queen Victoria in the 1961
Hallmark Hall of Fame production of
Laurence Housman's
Victoria Regina. She received further Emmy nominations for a range of roles including
Anastasia (1967),
The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1976)—where she reprised her Tony-winning role as
Mary Todd Lincoln from the 1973 play of the same name—and
The Woman He Loved (1988). She won her third Emmy award in 2000 for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for her voice role of
Susan B. Anthony in
Not for Ourselves Alone. Of particular note is her Tony-winning performance in
The Belle of Amherst, a one-woman play (written by
William Luce and directed by
Charles Nelson Reilly) based on the life and poetry of
Emily Dickinson. She received a
Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for the audio recording of the play. She first performed the play in 1976 and subsequently appeared in other solo shows, including Luce's
Brontë. Harris holds the Tonys record as the person with most wins (5) and nominations (9) in the
Lead Actress in a Play category. Other
Broadway credits include
The Playboy of the Western World,
Macbeth,
The Member of the Wedding,
A Shot in the Dark,
Skyscraper,
And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little,
Forty Carats,
The Glass Menagerie, ''
A Doll's House, The Gin Game, and a North American tour in 1992 of Lettice and Lovage'' in the lead part originated by
Maggie Smith on Broadway. In 1980, Harris guest starred in the series
Knots Landing as country singer Lilimae Clements, the eccentric and protective mother of
Valene Ewing (
Joan Van Ark); she returned to the series as a regular character from 1981 to 1987. The role earned Harris a nomination for the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, and two
Soap Opera Digest Award nominations. In 1983, Harris became a company member of
The Mirror Theater Ltd's Mirror Repertory Company. She became a mentor to the company, having urged Founding Artistic Director Sabra Jones to create the company from 1976 forward, when Jones married
John Strasberg. Harris and Jones met at a performance of
The Belle of Amherst, a revival of which
The Mirror Theater Ltd recently performed in their summer home in Vermont.
1990–2009: Established actress Harris made two recordings of narrations of
E. B. White's children's book
Stuart Little for the Pathways of Sound record label: the last six chapters for a single
LP record in 1965, and the entire book for a two-record set in 1979. She also recorded narrations of many children's books for
Caedmon Records. Harris also did extensive voiceover work for documentary maker
Ken Burns: the voices of
Emily Warren Roebling in
Brooklyn Bridge (1981),
Ann Lee in
The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984), and most notably Southern diarist
Mary Boykin Chesnut for Burns' 1990 series
The Civil War. In the summer of 2008, she appeared on stage again in
Chatham, Massachusetts, as "Nanny" in a Monomoy Theater production of
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Harris continued to work until 2009, well into her eighties, narrating five historical documentaries by
Christopher Seufert and
Mooncusser Films, as well as being active as a director on the board of the independent
Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT). In 2007, when the company built a new, additional theater, also in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Ms Harris declined to have the building named for her. However, she consented to their naming "a piece of it after me"; WHAT named their stage the "Julie Harris Stage".
Personal life and death Harris lived in
West Chatham, Cape Cod, for many years until her death. Three times divorced, she had one son, Peter Gurian. A
breast cancer survivor, Harris died on August 24, 2013, of
congestive heart failure at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts. Harris was
cremated after her death. ==Acting credits==