Katharine Ross

She studied at Santa Rosa Junior College for one year (1957–1958) where she was introduced to acting via a production of The King and I. She dropped out of the course and moved to San Francisco to study acting.[9]

She joined The Actors Workshop and was with them for three years (1959–1962)[11] For one role in Jean Genet's The Balcony she appeared nude on stage.[11]

In 1964, she was cast by John Houseman as Cordelia in a production of King Lear.[12][13]

While at the Workshop, she began acting in television series in Los Angeles to earn extra money.[9] She was brought to Hollywood by Metro, dropped, then picked up by Universal.[14]

Ross unsuccessfully auditioned for West Side Story (1961).[15] Her first television role was in Sam Benedict in 1962.[16][17]

She was picked up by agent Wally Hiller,[18] and in 1964, Ross appeared in episodes of Kraft Suspense Theatre, The Lieutenant, Arrest and Trial, The Virginian, The Great Adventure, Ben Casey, Mr. Novak, Wagon Train, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, Run for Your Life, Gunsmoke, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ("Dividing Wall", 1963) as well as the love interest of Heath Barkley opposite Lee Majors on The Big Valley(Season 1 Episode 7 "Winner Loses All"). She screen tested for The Young Lovers."[19]

Ross made her first film, Shenandoah (1965) playing the daughter-in-law of James Stewart. She returned to guest starring on shows like The Loner," The Wild Wild West and The Road West." MGM put her in an unsold TV pilot about bible stories. She signed a long term deal with Universal who called her an "American Samantha Eggar".[20]

"I didn't want a contract in the movies but a lot of people convinced me it was a good thing to do," she later said.[21]

MGM borrowed her for supporting parts in The Singing Nun (1966) and Mister Buddwing (1966).[16]

At Universal she starred in a TV movie with Doug McClure, The Longest Hundred Miles (1967), then co starred in a thriller, Games (1967) with Simone Signoret and James Caan, which she later called "terrible".[21][9][22]

Ross had a breakout role as Elaine Robinson in the hugely popular The Graduate (1967) opposite Dustin Hoffman. She had been recommended to director Mike Nichols by Signoret. This part earned her an Oscar nomination[23] and a Golden Globe as New Star of the Year. She said, "I'm not a movie star...that system is dying and I'd like to help it along."[9]

She later said at this time "I got sent everything in town but Universal wouldn't loan me out."[21] After eight months she was in Hellfighters (1968) playing the daughter of John Wayne who romances Jim Hutton.

She won a BAFTA for her part as an Indian in Universal's Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969), starring Robert Redford.[24] In August 1968, she signed a new contract with Universal to make two films a year for seven years.[25]

She turned down several roles (including Jacqueline Bisset's role in Bullitt[26]) 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 hit.[27] She was paid $175,000.[28]

She was meant to make The Public Eye for Ross Hunter but it was never made.[29]

She was dropped by Universal in the spring of 1969, for refusing to play a stewardess in Airport, another role that went to Jacqueline Bisset.[14] She eventually got out of her Universal contract. However this meant later on she lost out to Tuesday Weld on a film she really wanted to do, an adaptation of Play It As It Lays, because it was a Universal movie.[21]

She did star in Fools (1970) with Jason Robards.

Ross dropped out of Hollywood for a while after marrying Conrad Hall.[21]

She occasionally acted, appearing in Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972), They Only Kill Their Masters (1972) with James Garner and Chance and Violence (1974) with Yves Montand. She turned down several more roles,[30] including a part in The Towering Inferno.[31]

Preferring stage acting, Ross returned to the small playhouses in Los Angeles for much of the 1970s.[30]

"I'm aware that I have the reputation of being difficult," she later said.[32]

One of her best-known roles came in 1975's film The Stepford Wives, for which she replaced Tuesday Weld at the last moment and won the Saturn Award for Best Actress.[33]

She reprised the role of Etta Place in a 1976 ABC TV movie, Wanted: The Sundance Woman.[27] She won a Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her part in 1977's Voyage of the Damned.[34] She was also in The Betsy (1978), The Swarm (1978), and The Legacy (1979).

She starred in several television movies,[35] including Murder by Natural Causes in 1979 with Hal Holbrook, Barry Bostwick and Richard Anderson,[36] Rodeo Girl in 1980,[37] Murder in Texas (1981) and Marian Rose White (1982).[26] She had a support role in The Final Countdown (1980) and Wrong Is Right (1982) but focused on TV movies: The Shadow Riders (1982), a remake of Wait Until Dark (1983), Travis McGee (1982) with Elliot, Secrets of a Mother and Daughter (1983), Red Headed Stranger (1986), and Houston: The Legend of Texas (1986) with Elliot.[38]

She had a role in the 1980s television series The Colbys opposite Charlton Heston as Francesca Scott Colby.[39]

Ross wrote and starred in Conagher (1991) alongside Sam Elliott and was in A Climate for Killing (1991), and Home Before Dark (1997).[40]

She played Donnie's therapist in the 2001 film Donnie Darko.[41] 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 in Slip, Tumble & Slide (2015).

In 2017, she appeared as Sam Elliott's former wife in The Hero, in which he played an aging Western star.

Ross has established herself as an author, publishing several children's books.

In January 2015 she appeared at the Malibu Playhouse in the first of a series titled A Conversation With, interviewed by Steven Gaydos.[15][18] That February, she appeared with her husband Sam Elliott in Love Letters, also at the Malibu Playhouse.[19]