in an episode of
The Big Valley (1965) In 1964, Ross was cast by
John Houseman as Cordelia in a stage production of
King Lear. While at the workshop, she began acting in television series in Los Angeles to earn extra money. She was signed by agent Wally Hiller, despite some misgivings: "I didn't want a contract in the movies, but a lot of people convinced me it was a good thing to do."
Mainstream breakthrough At Universal, Ross starred in a television film with
Doug McClure,
The Longest Hundred Miles (1967), Ross's breakthrough role was as Elaine Robinson in
Mike Nichols's comedy-drama
The Graduate (1967), opposite
Dustin Hoffman and
Anne Bancroft. Ross was only eight years younger than Bancroft, who played her mother in the film. She had been recommended to director Nichols by Signoret. This part, in which Ross plays a young woman who elopes with a young man who had an affair with her mother, earned Ross an
Oscar nomination for
Best Supporting Actress, and won her a
Golden Globe Award as
New Star of the Year. Commenting on her critical accolades at the time, Ross said, "I'm not a movie star... that system is dying and I'd like to help it along." She later said at this time, "I got sent everything in town, but Universal wouldn't loan me out." In August 1968, she signed a new contract with Universal to make two films a year for seven years. She refused several roles (including
Jacqueline Bisset's role in
Bullitt) before accepting the part of
Etta Place in
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), co-starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, which was another massive commercial hit. She was paid $175,000 for her performance in the film. For her roles in both
Tell Them Willie Boy is Here and
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Ross won the
BAFTA Award for Best Actress. Because of this, she later lost out to
Tuesday Weld on a film she greatly desired to do, the
adaptation of
Joan Didion's novel
Play It as It Lays, because it was a Universal production. She occasionally acted, appearing in
Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972),
They Only Kill Their Masters (1972), which reunited her with James Garner, and
Chance and Violence (1974) with
Yves Montand. She refused several more roles, Preferring stage acting, Ross returned to the small playhouses in Los Angeles for much of the 1970s. "I'm aware that I have the reputation for being difficult", she later said. One of her best-known roles came in the 1975 film
The Stepford Wives, for which she won the
Saturn Award for Best Actress. She reprised the role of Etta Place in a 1976 ABC television film,
Wanted: The Sundance Woman, a sequel to
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Ross subsequently appeared in the drama film
Voyage of the Damned (1977) about a doomed ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, which earned her a second Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also in
The Betsy (1978) and the disaster film
The Swarm (1978). Next, Ross co-starred opposite
Sam Elliott in the supernatural horror film
The Legacy (1978), playing a woman who finds herself subject to an ancestral curse at an English estate. Ross had previously worked with Elliott on
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Television From 1979, Ross starred in several television movies, including
Murder by Natural Causes in 1979 with
Hal Holbrook,
Barry Bostwick and
Richard Anderson,
Rodeo Girl in 1980,
Murder in Texas (1981) and
Marian Rose White (1982). She had a role in the 1980s television series
The Colbys opposite
Charlton Heston as Francesca Scott Colby, mother of
Dynasty crossover character Jeff Colby.
Later career Ross co-wrote the teleplay and starred in
Conagher (1991) alongside husband Sam Elliott and was in
A Climate for Killing (1991), and
Home Before Dark (1997). She played Donnie's therapist in the 2001
cult classic Donnie Darko. She was in ''
Don't Let Go (2002), and Capital City'' (2004) and played
Carly Schroeder's grandmother in the 2006 independent film
Eye of the Dolphin. She was also in
Slip, Tumble & Slide (2015). In January 2015, she appeared at the Malibu Playhouse in the first of a series titled
A Conversation With, interviewed by
Steven Gaydos. That February, she again co-starred with Sam Elliott in
Love Letters, also at the Malibu Playhouse. In 2017, she appeared as Sam Elliott's former wife in
The Hero, in which he played an aging Western star. ==Personal life==