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Lee Grant
Grant at the premiere of F.I.S.T., April 1978
Born	Lyova Haskell Rosenthal October 31, 1927 (1927-10-31) (age 82) New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Actress/Director
Years active	1950–2005
Spouse(s)	Arnold Manoff (1951-1960) Joseph Feury (1962-present)

Lee Grant (born October 31, 1927) is an American theater, film and television actress, and film director who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.

[edit] Early life

Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal in New York City, the daughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants Witia (née Haskell), a teacher, and Abraham W. Rosenthal, a realtor and educator.^[1] Her stage name, Lee Grant, is a compilation of the two leading U.S. Civil War generals. Grant performed as a ballerina with the New York Metropolitan Opera at the age of four, and during her childhood studied dance and acting.

[edit] Career

Grant established herself as a dramatic actress on Broadway while a teenager, earning praise for her role as a shoplifter in the play Detective Story. She made her film debut in the movie version of Detective Story, receiving her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination, and winning the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Called before the House Un-American Activities Committee to testify against her husband, the playwright Arnold Manoff, father of her daughter, actress Dinah Manoff, Grant refused to testify and was ultimately blacklisted. She continued to work in theater and resumed her film career in the early 1960s, appearing in the television series Peyton Place as the evil Stella Chernak. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Drama for that role.

Grant received subsequent Academy Award nominations for The Landlord (1970), and Voyage of the Damned (1976). She won an Oscar for Shampoo (1975). She has directed several documentary films, including Down and Out in America (1986) which won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. In recent years she directed a series of Intimate Portrait episodes (for Lifetime Television) that celebrated a diverse range of accomplished women.

Grant appeared as a cunning lawyer/murderess on an episode of Columbo, for which she was nominated for an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries or a Movie. Competing against herself, she received the award for her other Emmy-nominated performance in The Neon Ceiling. She had her own sitcom, a series entitled Fay (1975), which, in spite of its popularity, was canceled after only eight episodes by nervous NBC executives who received hate mail that demonized 'Fay the divorcee.' It remains the highest-ranking Nielsen-ranked show (at fifth) to have been canceled so early in its debut. Grant was vocal in assigning blame for the cancellation of the series which was about the travails of a mature, divorced, sexually active woman - a character that may have turned off some viewers.

Grant also guest starred on Empty Nest, a TV series in which her daughter Dinah Manoff was a regular.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] As actress

[edit] As director

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Lee Grant at the Internet Movie Database
• Lee Grant at the Internet Broadway Database
• Lee Grant at the Internet Off-Broadway Database