Julie Harris
Julie Harris (December 2, 1925 – August 24, 2013) was an American actress known for her work on stage, in films, and on television. She won five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play, a record in that category, along with three Primetime Emmys and a Grammy. She received the National Medal of Arts, a Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award, and a Kennedy Center Honor, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1979.
Harris began on Broadway in 1945. Her famous stage roles include Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera, The Lark, Forty Carats, The Last of Mrs. Lincoln, and The Belle of Amherst, a one-woman show about Emily Dickinson. She also portrayed Sally Bowles in the film version of I Am a Camera (1955). Her movies include The Member of the Wedding (1952, Oscar nomination), East of Eden (1955), The Haunting (1963), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), and The Hiding Place (1975).
On television, she earned multiple Emmys for Little Moon of Alban (1958), Victoria Regina (1962), Not for Ourselves Alone (1999), and other works. She won a Grammy for The Belle of Amherst (1978) for Best Spoken Word Album. Harris did voice work for Ken Burns' documentaries and appeared in Knots Landing in the 1980s.
Born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Harris trained in acting and studied at the Yale School of Drama, later receiving an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Yale in 2007. She helped found the Actors Studio and practiced method acting. Harris lived for many years in West Chatham, Cape Cod, and remained active onstage into the 2000s.
She married three times and had one son, Peter Gurian. She survived breast cancer and strokes, and died of congestive heart failure in 2013. Her legacy includes a stage named after her at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater and a Broadway memorial and scholarship in her name. Yale Drama School is now the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 21:23 (CET).