Julie Harris

Julie Harris

  • Highest Rated: 100% Harper (The Moving Target) (1966)
  • Lowest Rated: 20% The Lightkeepers (2010)
  • Birthday: Dec 2, 1925
  • Birthplace: Not Available

  • A renowned theater actress, Julie Harris also augmented her reputation with strong performances in a number of film and TV roles, despite her aversion to the Hollywood "glamour star" trip. Born to a well-to-do Grosse Pointe, Michigan, family, Harris opted to pursue acting at Yale Drama School rather than make her society debut at age 19. She landed her first Broadway part one year later. Harris' career was truly launched at age 25, however, by her star-making performance as troubled pre-teen tomboy Frankie in Carson McCullers' play The Member of the Wedding in 1950. Reprising her role in the film adaptation of The Member of the Wedding (1952), Harris scored an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in her first major film appearance. Though she did not win, she did win the first of five Tony Awards in 1952 for her Broadway turn as Berlin cabaret singer Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera. Along with the well-received film version of I Am a Camera in 1955, Harris starred in perhaps her best-known film that same year: Elia Kazan's East of Eden. As initially-coquettish Abra, Harris became a sensitive yet sensible romantic lead opposite an anguished James Dean in his legendary debut. With this trio of films, Harris became part of the 1950s cinematic turn toward performative "realism" exemplified by Method actor icons Dean and Marlon Brando (despite her own impatience with the Method after an Actors Studio stint).Harris continued to avoid typecasting by playing a number of different roles in TV, theater, and movie productions throughout the subsequent decades. On film, Harris showed her considerable range as a kindly social worker in the film version of Rod Serling's teleplay Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), one of the highly disturbed human guinea pigs in the original (and far superior) version of The Haunting (1963), a frustrated nightclub chanteuse in the Paul Newman p.i. vehicle Harper (1966), and a troubled wife in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). On stage, Harris' specialty became playing famous women throughout history, including Tony-award winning performances as Joan of Ark in The Lark (1956), Mary Todd Lincoln in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1973) (adapted for TV in 1976), and Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst (1977).After surviving a bout with cancer in 1981, Harris achieved considerable fame with a new audience by playing Lilimae Clements on the TV nighttime serial Knot's Landing from 1981 to 1988. After she left the show, Harris returned to films, after nearly a decade, as Sigourney Weaver's friend in Gorillas in the Mist (1988). Harris kept busy throughout the 1990s with supporting roles in several films, including Housesitter (1992) and the George A. Romero/Stephen King chiller The Dark Half (1993), as well as starring roles onstage and in TV films, including Ellen Foster (1997). She was awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 1994. Harris would continue to act throughout the decades to come, memorably appearing in TV movies like Little Surprises and Love is Strange. Harris retired from on-screen acting in 2009, and eventually passed away in 2013. She was 87.

Highest Rated Movies

Filmography

Movies

Rating

Title

Credit

Box
Office

Year

20% The Lightkeepers Mrs. Deacon — 2010
28% Chatham (The Golden Boys) Melodeon Player — 2009
No Score Yet The Way Back Home Jo McMillen — 2005
83% Broadway: The Golden Age Actor — 2004
No Score Yet The Last of Mrs. Lincoln Actor — 2002
No Score Yet Not For Ourselves Alone Susan B. Anthony — 1999
No Score Yet The First of May Carlotta — 1999
No Score Yet Love Is Strange Sylvia — 1999
85% Bad Manners Prof. Harper — 1998
No Score Yet Frank Lloyd Wright Actor — 1998
No Score Yet Ellen Foster Leonora — 1997
No Score Yet Ruth Orkin: Frames of Life Actor — 1997
64% Carried Away Joseph's Mother — 1996
No Score Yet One Christmas Cousin Sook Faulk — 1994
No Score Yet Secretos Caroline Phelan — 1994
No Score Yet Scarlett Actor — 1994
56% The Dark Half Reggie — 1993
No Score Yet They've Taken Our Children: The Chowchilla Kidnapping (Vanished Without a Trace) Odessa — 1993
37% Housesitter Edna Davis — 1992
No Score Yet A Woman's Place: An Inspiring Document of Achievement Narrator — 1989
No Score Yet The Christmas Wife Iris — 1988
83% Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey Roz Carr — 1988
No Score Yet The Woman He Loved Wallis's Mother — 1988
No Score Yet Harold Clurman: A Life of Theatre Actor — 1988
No Score Yet Forever James Dean Actor — 1988
No Score Yet Nutcracker: The Motion Picture Claire — 1986
No Score Yet Backstairs at the White House Actor — 1979
No Score Yet The Bell Jar Mrs. Greenwood — 1979
No Score Yet Emily Dickinson: A Certain Slant of Light Actor — 1978
No Score Yet Emily Dickinson: A Certain Slant of Light Actor — 1977
82% Voyage of the Damned Alice Feinchild — 1976
No Score Yet The Last of Mrs. Lincoln Actor — 1976
No Score Yet America at the Movies Actor — 1976
No Score Yet The Belle of Amherst Actor — 1976
No Score Yet The Hiding Place Betsie ten Boom — 1975
No Score Yet James Dean: The First American Teenager Actor — 1975
No Score Yet The Greatest Gift Actor — 1974
No Score Yet Home for the Holidays Actor — 1972
No Score Yet How Awful About Allan Katherine — 1970
No Score Yet The People Next Door Gerrie Mason — 1970
No Score Yet The Split Gladys — 1968
No Score Yet Journey to Midnight Actor — 1968
53% Reflections in a Golden Eye Alison Langdon — 1967
82% You're a Big Boy Now Miss Nora Thing — 1966
100% Harper (The Moving Target) Betty Fraley — 1966
87% The Haunting Eleanor Lance — 1963
92% Requiem for a Heavyweight Grace Miller — 1962
No Score Yet The Truth About Women Helen Cooper — 1957
No Score Yet I Am a Camera Sally Bowles — 1955
86% East of Eden Abra — 1955
83% The Member of the Wedding Frankie Addams — 1952

TV

Rating

Title

Credit

Year

No Score Yet Independent Lens
1999
Appearing
  • 2003
No Score Yet Ken Burns' Baseball
1994-2010
Voice
  • 1994
No Score Yet Family Ties
1982-1989
  • 1987
No Score Yet Knots Landing
1979-1993
Lilimae Clements
  • 1987
  • 1986
  • 1985
  • 1984
  • 1983
  • 1982
  • 1981
  • 1980
No Score Yet The Family Holvak
1975
Elizabeth Holvak
  • 1975
No Score Yet Columbo
1968-2003
Karen
  • 1975
  • 1973
No Score Yet Bonanza
1959-1973
Sarah
  • 1968
No Score Yet Rawhide
1959-1965
Emma Teall
  • 1965
No Score Yet Tales of the Unexpected
1979-1988
Mrs. Foster Mrs. Bixby

QUOTES FROM Julie Harris CHARACTERS

Eleanor Vance
Hill House has stood for ninety years and will probably stand for ninety more. And we who walk at Hill House, walk alone.
Eleanor Vance
And whatever walks there walks alone
Eleanor Vance
And whatever walks there walks alone.
Eleanor Vance
Whose hand was I holding?
Eleanor Vance
Can't you feel it? It's alive...watching.
Eleanor Vance
Can't you feel it? It's alive, watching.
Eleanor Vance
(panicking) - But where?
Dr. John Markway
Home of course.
Theodora
Back to your little apartment, where all your things are.
Eleanor Vance
Human nature could certainly stand some improvement.
Mrs. Dudley
I set dinner on the dining room sideboard at 6. I clear up in the morning. I have breakfast for you at 9. I don't wait on people. I don't stay after I set out the dinner, not after it begins to get dark. I leave before the dark.
Eleanor Vance
Your husband?
Mrs. Dudley
We live over in town, miles away.
Eleanor Vance
Yes.
Mrs. Dudley
So there won't be anyone around if you need help.
Eleanor Vance
I understand.
Mrs. Dudley
We couldn't hear you; in the night.
Eleanor Vance
Do you have any idea when Dr. Markway...
Mrs. Dudley
(cuts her off) - No one could. No one lives any nearer than town. No one will come any nearer than that.
Eleanor Vance
I know.
Mrs. Dudley
In the night; in the dark. - (she grins)
Eleanor Vance
What scares you, Theodora?
Theodora
Knowing what I really want.
Eleanor Vance
God! God! Whose hand was I holding?
Eleanor Vance
Oh! This house! You have to watch it every minute!
Theodora
Is this another one of your crazy ideas?
Eleanor Vance
I'm not crazy!
Theodora
Crazy as a loon! You really expect me to believe that you're sane and the rest of the world is mad?
Eleanor Vance
Well why not? The world is full of inconsistencies. Full of unnatural beings, nature's mistakes they call you for instance!
Eleanor Vance
I'm still so terrified from last night.
Dr. John Markway
You shouldn't be. It's silly to be frightened...
Eleanor Vance
Silly? You haven't been through it! This horrible unknown thing!
Dr. John Markway
Unknown.' That's the key word. 'Unknown.' When we become involved in a supernatural event, we're scared out of our wits just because it's unknown. The night cry of a child; a face on the wall; knockings, banging's. What's there to be afraid of? You weren't threatened. It was harmless, like a joke that doesn't come out.
Eleanor Vance
But the child...
Dr. John Markway
There was no child, remember? Just a voice!
Eleanor Vance
A voice.
Dr. John Markway
Look, Eleanor, put it this way. When people believed the Earth was flat, the idea of a round world scared them silly. Then they found out how the round world works. It's the same with the world of the supernatural. Until we know how it works, we'll continue to carry around this unnecessary burden of fear.
Eleanor Vance
Supposing it is in my imagination; the knocking, the voices. Everything...Every cursed bit of the haunting! Suppose the haunting is all in my mind.
Dr. John Markway
Well, you can't say that, because there are three other people here. We all resist the idea that what ran through the garden that first night was a ghost. What banged on the door was a ghost. What held your hand was a ghost. But there is certainly something going on in Hill House. We're getting closer, very close to finding out what it is.
Eleanor Vance
Hill House has stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Within, walls continue upright, bricks meet, floors are firm, and doors are sensibly shut. Silence lies steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House; and we who walk here...walk alone.
Eleanor Vance
Hill House has stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Within, walls continue upright, bricks meet, floors are firm, and doors are sensibly shut. Silence lies steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House; and we who walk here, walk alone.