Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress. Woodward is also a television and theatrical producer.
Early life
Woodward was born in Thomasville, Georgia, daughter of Elinor Gignilliat (née Trimmier) and Wade Woodward, Jr., who at one point was vice president of publisher Charles Scribner's Sons.12 Her middle name, "Gignilliat", originates from distant Huguenot ancestry.3 She was influenced to become an actress by her mother's love of movies.3 Her mother named her after Joan Crawford, using the Southern pronunciation of the name - "Joanne".3 Attending the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, nine-year-old Woodward rushed out into the parade of stars and sat on the lap of Laurence Olivier, star Vivien Leigh's husband. She eventually worked with Olivier in 1979, in a television production of Come Back, Little Sheba.
Woodward lived in Thomasville until she was in the second grade. Her family relocated to Marietta, Georgia. They moved once again when she was a junior in high school, after her parents divorced.3 She graduated from Greenville High School in 1947, in Greenville, South Carolina. Woodward won many beauty contests as a teenager. She appeared in theatrical productions at Greenville High and in Greenville's Little Theatre, playing Laura Wingfield in their staging of The Glass Menagerie directed by Robert Hemphill McLane. She returned to Greenville in 1976 to play Amanda Wingfield in another Little Theatre production of The Glass Menagerie. She had also returned in 1955 for the premiere of her debut movie, Count Three And Pray, at the Paris Theatre on North Main Street.
She majored in drama at Louisiana State University, where she was an initiate of Chi Omega sorority, then headed to New York City to perform on the stage.3
Career
Early career
Woodward's first film was a post-Civil War western Count Three and Pray, in 1955. She continued to move between Hollywood and Broadway, eventually, understudying in the New York production of Picnic which featured Paul Newman.3 The two were married in 1958 after their work together in the film The Long, Hot Summer. By that time, Woodward had starred in The Three Faces of Eve, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.3
Films with Paul Newman
She appeared with husband Paul Newman in ten featured films:
Both appeared in the HBO miniseries Empire Falls but had no scenes together.
She starred in five films that Newman directed or produced but in which he did not star:
Later career
Woodward has continued to act, in such films as Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams and Philadelphia (1993) in which she played the mother to Tom Hanks' character,3 and in television. She appeared in the television films Sybil, opposite Sally Field, and Crisis at Central High. She was the narrator for Martin Scorsese's screen version of The Age of Innocence.
Woodward was a co-producer and starred in a 1993 broadcast of the play Blind Spot, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie. She was executive producer of the 2003 television production of Our Town, featuring Newman as the stage manager (for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award.) She wrote the teleplay and directed a 1982 production of Shirley Jackson's story Come Along with Me, for which husband Newman provided the voice of the character Hughie under the screen name of P. L. Neuman.
Woodward is the artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse.3
She recorded a reading of singer John Mellencamp's song "The Real Life" for his box set On the Rural Route 7609.
Personal life
Joanne was rumored to have been engaged to author Gore Vidal prior to marrying Paul Newman, however there was no real engagement, Vidal later claimed it was a stunt to attract Paul Newman's attention. She shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles for a short time and remained friends. Woodward married Paul Newman on January 29, 1958. They had three daughters: Elinor Teresa (1959; known on screen as Nell Potts and generally as Nell Newman), Melissa "Lissy" Stewart (1961), and Claire "Clea" Olivia (1965). She lives in Westport, Connecticut, but the Newmans were extremely private about their personal life. Newman occasionally ventured to California, but Woodward refused to go west for many years. Paul Newman died of cancer on September 26, 2008, aged 83. The couple have two grandchildren.
In 1990, she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College alongside her daughter, Clea.3
Filmography
Awards
In 1958, Woodward won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Three Faces of Eve.3 She was nominated for Best Actress in 1969 for Rachel, Rachel, in 1974 for Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, and in 1991 for Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. She was named Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 1974 for her performance in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.
Woodward won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie, for See How She Runs (1978) as a divorced teacher who trains for a marathon, and in Do You Remember Love? (1985) as a professor who begins to suffer from Alzheimer's disease. She has been nominated an additional five times for her roles on television.
On February 9, 1960, Joanne Woodward became the first performer to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6801 Hollywood Blvd.
References
Further reading
- Morella, Joe; and Epstein, Edward Z. (1988). Paul and Joanne: A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. New York, NY: Delacorte Press. ISBN 9780440500049. OCLC 18016049.
- Netter, Susan (1989). Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. London, England: Piatkus. ISBN 9780861888696. OCLC 19778734.
External links
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Awards for Joanne Woodward |
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| Persondata |
| NAME |
Woodward, Joanne |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
Woodward, Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Actress, producer |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
February 27, 1930 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Thomasville, Georgia, U.S. |
| DATE OF DEATH |
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| PLACE OF DEATH |
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