Julie Harris, one of the most awarded actresses in Broadway history, died over the weekend at age 87. She was not only known for her sterling performances on the stage, but also played important roles on both film and television.
According to the Associated Press, Harris died at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts of congestive heart failure, family friend Francesca James confirmed.
Harris was nominated for 10 Tonys during a career that stretched from the 1950s to 1997, the most nominations in history. The New York Times notes that she won the award five times, earning her final nomination for the 1997 production The Gin Game, in which she made her final Broadway appearance.
Her Broadway career included such important roles as Sally Boweles in I Am a Camera - which was based on the same material that would become Cabaret - and Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst.
She made her Broadway debut in 1950’s The Member of the Wedding. She made her feature film debut in the film version, earning her only Oscar nomination for her performance.
While she didn’t earn many honors for her film career, she still played important roles and showed incredible versatility. She starred alongside James Dean in Elia Kazan’s East of Eden, starred with Anthony Quinn in Requiem for A Heavyweight and can be seen in Paul Newman’s detective drama Harper. On television, she starred in the long-running soap Knots Landing and played roles in the live dramas of the early 1950s.
She married three times and had one son, Peter Alston Gurian.
