Lee Grant Movies
Primarily a stage actress, Lee Grant has also been distinguished for her feature film and television work. She was born Lyova Rosenthal in New York City and received her training at Juilliard. The daughter of an actress and model, Grant was only four when she debuted in a show at the Metropolitan Opera. Grant joined the American Ballet at age 11, graduated from high school at 14, and then received a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse where she was seen by stage director Sidney Kingsley who cast her as a young shoplifter in his 1949 Broadway production Detective Story. The role won Grant a Critics Circle Award. She reprised the role in the 1951 film version and earned an Oscar nomination and the Cannes Festival's Best Actress award. Her promising film career abruptly derailed when the House Un-American Activities Committee tried forcing Grant to testify against her already blacklisted playwright husband, Arnold Manoff. She refused and was promptly blacklisted. Though her stage career thrived, it would be 12 years before Grant would be able to get substantial roles in television or movies. By the time she returned to the media in the mid-'60s, she was relegated to character roles wherein she typically played ambitious, tough, and beautiful women. During the second season of the sudsy television drama Peyton Place (1964-1969), Grant won an Emmy for her portrayal of Stella Chernak. In 1970, Grant won her second Oscar nomination for Hal Ashby's The Landlord and her first Oscar for Shampoo (1975). But for yet another Oscar nomination in Voyage of the Damned (1976), Grant the actress spent the rest of the decade making cameo appearances in big-budget disaster pictures. Grant became a movie director in 1980 with the moving Tell Me a Riddle. Subsequent directorial efforts include A Matter of Sex (1984) and Reunion (1994). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 2005
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The rich legacy of cinema legend Kirk Douglas is explored in Academy Award-winning actress and documentary-filmmaker Lee Grant's illuminating look at the personal side of a Hollywood royalty. With roles in such indisputable Hollywood classics as Spartacus, Kirk Douglas achieved the kind of cinematic superstardom that dreams are made of. As the torch was passed to his talented son Michael in such efforts as Romancing the Stone, Wall Street, and Basic Instinct, it became obvious to filmgoers that the Douglas dynasty would continue to thrive. Now, for the first time ever on camera, filmmaker Grant conducts exclusive interviews with both Kirk and Michael, their friends, and various family members to offer the definitive look at both the public and private lives of the father and son who made Hollywood history. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1970
The results of a vicious practical jokes emerge during college. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1984
A Matter of Sex is the calculatedly misleading title of a based-on-fact TV movie, which originally bore the more suitable title Women of Willmar. In 1976, the women working in a bank in Willmar, Minnesota become incensed because less-qualified men are being promoted over them. Head teller Jean Stapleton, with the help of attorney Peter Dvorsky and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, organizes an employee's union. When the chauvinistic bank officers cause negotiations to break down, Stapleton and seven other female employees go on strike--a job action which lasts for two years, despite political and social pressure from the community. Director Lee Grant, whose daughter Dinah Manoff is cast as one of the strikers, had previously helmed a documentary based on the same incident, The Willmar Eight--which was telecast on PBS the night before the January 1984 network premiere of A Matter of Sex. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Stretching the Airport concept as far as it will go, this third film in the series sticks a jet full of old actors 50 feet underwater in the Bermuda Triangle. Oxygen (and credibility) grows short, and Jimmy Stewart plays an art collector targeted for a heist. Jack Lemmon is the unfortunate pilot, and Christopher Lee shows up along with Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, and Olivia de Havilland. Jerry Jameson, auteur of The Bat People, was selected to helm this entry featuring that film's star, Michael Pataki. George Kennedy, the only man to appear in all four Airport films, is along for the ride as well. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, (more)
- 1964
This episodic drama is set in New York and chronicles the sexual lives and difficulties of three people as they describe their romantic woes. One is an aging fashion model who clings to her young lover because she knows that she will never have another. Two others are married, unhappy, and totally neurotic. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1986
In a drama from New Zealand that addresses prejudices against its Maori population, Monica (Judy McIntosh) comes home to her live-in boyfriend Nick (Peter Hayden) after a long absence in Europe. The two have a hard time getting along, so she talks Nick into taking a vacation on the beach and the couple head north for some time together. They run into Riki (Rawiri Paratene), a charming Maori, and offer him a badly-needed lift in their car. As the trio continues down the road, Nick starts to feel wildly jealous of Monica's interest in the Maori and is getting irked at Riki's references to white settlers and their treatment of Native New Zealanders. At the end of his tether, Nick boots Riki out and tells Monica he is going back home. This leaves Monica with very few options. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy McIntosh, Peter Hayden, (more)
Based on the best-selling memoirs of Lillian Rogers Parks, the NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House traces over five decades of American political history as witnessed from the vantage point of the servants' quarters. Played by Tania Johnson as a teenager and by Leslie Uggams as an adult, Lillian Rogers Parks served for 52 years as a maidservant at the White House. Though crippled early on with polio, Lillian diligently and loyally stuck to her duties -- and her own rock-solid set of principles and ideals -- through eight highly different Presidential administrations, often (and occasionally reluctantly) acting as friend and confidante to the First Lady of the moment. The large and stellar cast included a number of top-rank film and TV actors, obviously having the time of their lives impersonating such presidents as William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and their respective wives. Also in the cast were several African-American veterans from the landmark TV miniseries Roots. Earning 11 Emmy Award nominations, the nine-hour Backstairs at the White House was seen in five installments from January 29 to February 19, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Uggams, Olivia Cole, (more)
The harsh realities of war are brought into focus in this documentary fromHBO. Acclaimed filmmakers Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill offer an uncensored look at life inside the 86th Combat Support Hospital during the second U.S. war in Iraq, presenting tense moments in the operating room as well as intimate interviews with both doctors and soldiers. Designed as a testament to the thankless job done by the military's medical staff, Baghdad ER went on to win four Emmy awards. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- 1982
The perfume business is dramatized in this soap opera-like made-for-television movie. Based on the novel by Meredith Rich, Genie Francis (who played the infamous Laura on General Hospital) stars as Tiger Hayes, a woman who decides to start her own fragrance company. Typical soap dramas abound in this two-part movie, which was the pilot for a short-lived television series. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Boxleitner, Linda Evans, (more)
While glued to his TV, Boris (Scott Tiler) discovers that his set is dispensing news bulletins from the future. Armed with foreknowledge, he begins betting heavily on all sorts of games of chance, from horse races to lotteries. Naturally, this is far too good to last. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1968
Gina Lollobrigida delivers a bright comic turn in Melvin Frank's farce concerning Carla, an Italian woman who, during World War II, had affairs with three American soldiers who served in the U.S. Army Air Force -- Phil Newman (Phil Silvers), Justin Young (Peter Lawford), and Walter Braddock (Telly Savalas). Finding that she is pregnant after the squadron is transferred, she convinces each of the three soldiers that he is the father of her child. Phil, Justin, and Walter react to Carla's pregnancy by sending her child-support checks -- checks that Carla has been receiving every month from each of them for the past 20 years. Meanwhile, in order to save face in her village, Carla concocted the story that the father was the fictitious Captain Eddie Campbell, who was killed in action. But Carla's deceptions are about to be exposed when she finds out that all three soldiers are returning to her village with their wives and children for a reunion of the squadron. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gina Lollobrigida, Shelley Winters, (more)
- 1980
- R
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Peter Ustinov plays the talented detective in San Francisco who attempts, with help/hindrance from his clumsy grandson (Richard Hatch), to solve a murder case in this mystery/comedy. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Ustinov, Lee Grant, (more)
- 1991
This is a modern-day retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1985
This updated version of Cinderella is set in the New York of the 1980s. A very young Kyra Sedgwick stars as Cindy Eller, a shy and awkward teenager burdened with a seemingly insensitive stepmother and two attractive, trendy, and overbearing stepsisters (one of whom is played by Jennifer Grey!). Yearning to attend an upcoming dance with handsome classmate Greg Prince (Grant Show), Cindy receives assistance from an unlikely "fairy godmother" in the form of an all-knowing Central Park "bag lady" named Martha (Pearl Bailey, who won an Emmy Award for her performance). And in the process, our heroine comes to realize that her "new" mother and sisters aren't really so bad after all. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kyra Sedgwick, Pearl Bailey, (more)
Frank Pierson's made-for-cable adaptation of Nicholas VonHoffman's biography, Citizen Cohn stars James Woods as the controversial lawyer Roy Cohn. The film is structured as a series of flashbacks while Cohn lies in a New York hospital dying of AIDS. In the 1940s and early '50s, Cohn became one of the most powerful men in the country after becoming an important associate of Senator Joseph McCarthy (Joe Don Baker) and his Communist witch hunts. The film recounts those turbulent times and features portrayals of such real-life figures as J. Edgar Hoover (Pat Hingle), Dashiell Hammett (Frederic Forrest), Cardinal Spellman (Daniel Benzali), and Walter Winchell (Joseph Bologna). ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Woods, Joe Don Baker, (more)
- 1971
Peter Falk revived his Lieutenant Columbo characterization, first seen in 1967's Prescription: Murder, for the made-for-TV Ransom for a Dead Man. Lee Grant plays a wily lawyer who murders her husband, then arranges to make it appear that he's been kidnapped. The plan is to allow the body to be found by the cops during the ransom pickup, leaving Grant in the clear. But Columbo has "just one more question," and slowly but surely wears down Grant's alibi. Written and produced by Richard Levinson and William O. Link, Ransom for a Dead Man was the official pilot for the subsequent Columbo TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
In this drama from New Zealand, Donough Rees plays Constance, a school teacher bored with routine of her daily life. Constance loves movies and sometimes escapes into a rich fantasy life where she's a world-famous screen star. Constance begins trying to bring a bit of the glamour and excitement of her favorite films into her daily life, and she starts acting like her favorite movie stars. However, her continued retreat into a fantasy world has tragic consequences in real life. Constance was the debut feature for writer/director Bruce Morrison. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donough Rees, Shane Briant, (more)
Satan's son comes of age in this horror sequel. Shortly after the events of The Omen, a pair of anthropologists uncovers an ancient crypt that depicts the face of the Antichrist -- that of Damien Thorn (Jonathan Scott-Taylor), recently orphaned scion of a wealthy industrialist. Before they can warn the world of the child's evil lineage, both men are buried under tons of rubble. Seven years later, 13-year-old Damien attends military school alongside his cousin, Mark (Lucas Donat), and spends lots of time with his adoptive parents, Uncle Richard (William Holden) and Aunt Ann (Lee Grant). After the boy's Great Aunt Marion (Sylvia Sidney) tries to convince the Thorns that Damien is a malevolent influence on Mark, she dies suddenly, and, unbeknownst to the family, horrifically. Ravens, it seems, are the harbingers of Damien's power, and in addition to Aunt Marion, they visit a long procession of characters who get too close to Damien's true identity. The most horrible death is suffered by Joan Hart (Elizabeth Shepherd), an investigative reporter who's digging into the boy's life; she gets flattened by a truck after having her eyes devoured by those menacing birds. Meanwhile, executive Paul Buher (Robert Foxworth) climbs the corporate ladder at Thorn Industries and takes young Damien under his devil-worshiping wings. Sgt. Neff (Lance Henriksen), one of the boy's instructors, also helps initiate Damien. As the pile of bodies gets bigger -- and closer -- Uncle Richard begins to suspect the truth, and, like his brother before him, plot the death of Damien. The existence of another sequel, 1981's The Final Conflict, gives a good indication of the outcome. Although Damien: Omen II is his only Hollywood feature credit, Scott-Taylor appeared frequently in the theater and on television; he once even portrayed Damien's arch-nemesis, Jesus, on-stage. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Holden, Lee Grant, (more)
- 1967
This 60-minute drama was originally telecast May 17, 1967 on The Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre. Lee Grant plays Virginia Cloyd, the widow of notorious criminal. Early one morning, Virginia calmly walks into a police precinct office--armed with a pistol and vial of nitroglycerine. In a measured voice, she announces that she intends to wait for detective James Lassiter (Donald May), the man responsible for the death of her husband. She also declares that she intends to kill Lassiter, in full view of the other cops. Detective novelist Ed McBain adapted the teleplay from his own story. An earlier version of Deadlock appeared on the McBain-inspired TV series 87th Precinct (1961-62). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Albert Brooks wrote, directed, and stars in this philosophical comedy about a man having a hard time making a case for himself in the afterlife. When advertising executive Daniel Miller (Albert Brooks) finds himself in a fatal car crash minutes after taking delivery on a new BMW, he's whisked away to Judgment City, where the recently dead are put on a sort of trial to decide their fate. If in your time on Earth you were able to face your fears and learn from your mistakes, you get to move on to a life in a better world. However, if you didn't, you have to go back to Earth and try again. As he spends the next several days watching various episodes from his life, Daniel gets the impression he doesn't stand much of a chance of moving on -- and his representative, Bob Diamond (Rip Torn), seems to have little confidence in his case. In the meantime, he frequents Judgment City's many restaurants (where the food is delicious and you can eat all you want without gaining an ounce), pays a visit to the Past Life Pavilion, and meets Julia (Meryl Streep), who seems so kind, sweet, and noble that her advancement is practically assured. Daniel and Julia fall in love, but what's going to happen if they don't end up in the same place? Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep make a witty and engaging romantic team in Defending Your Life, and Shirley MacLaine appears in a highly appropriate cameo. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, (more)
Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Detective Story was praised for its realistic view of an event-filled day in a single police precinct station. The film, directed by meticulous taskmaster William Wyler, manages to retain this realism, even allowing for the star-turn performance of Kirk Douglas. A stickler for the letter of the law, Detective James McLeod (Douglas) is not averse to using strong-arm methods on criminals and witnesses alike in bringing lawbreakers to justice. He is particularly rough on a first-time offender (Craig Hill), on whom the rest of the force is willing to go easy because of the anguish of his girlfriend (Cathy O'Donnell). But McLeod's strongest invective is reserved for shady abortion doctor Karl Schneider (George MacReady); McLeod all but ruins the case against Schneider by beating him up in the patrol wagon. When McLeod discovers that his own wife (Eleanor Parker) had many years earlier lost a baby in one of Schneider's operations, and that the baby's father was gangster Tami Giacoppetti (Gerald Mohr), it is too much for the detective to bear. Punctuating the grim proceedings with brief moments of humor is future Oscar winner Lee Grant, reprising her stage role as a timorous shoplifter; it would be her last Hollywood assignment until the early 1960s, thanks to the iniquities of the blacklist. Despite small concessions to Hollywood censorship, Detective Story largely upheld the power of its theatrical original, and it forms a clear precursor to such latter-day urban police dramas as NYPD Blue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, (more)
An unhappy couple discover breaking up really is hard to do in this satiric comedy. Richard Harmon (Dick Van Dyke) and his wife, Barbara (Debbie Reynolds), are a typical married couple in American Suburbia -- which is to say they're not very happy with each other. After 15 years together, Richard and Barbara decide they've reached the end of their collective rope, and after several rounds of marriage counseling proves fruitless, they file for divorce. Between negotiating child custody, alimony, and finding new places to live, Richard and Barbara discover divorce isn't appreciably easier than being married; meanwhile, Richard makes a new friend in Nelson Downes (Jason Robards), a fellow divorcé who would love nothing more than for Richard to marry his former wife, Nancy (Jean Simmons), and take away the burden of alimony. Also featuring Van Johnson, Lee Grant, Shelley Berman, and Eileen Brennan in her first film role, Divorce American Style earned an Oscar nomination for Norman Lear and Robert Kaufman's original screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Reynolds, (more)
- 1986
Actress and director Lee Grant returns to documentary filmmaking with this award-winning look at a cross-section of luckless Americans and the societal factors that contributed to their impoverishment. During an hour of diverse footage, narrated by Grant, Down and Out in America examines a group of protesting farmers foreclosed on by the bank, a grassroots homeless coalition stymied by greedy landlords, and a family of six living in a squalid welfare hotel after losing their home in a fire. Grant does not draw explicit connections between the downtrodden Americans. Instead, she lets the common suffering they express serve as an overarching comment on a society that has turned a blind eye to the needs of its weakest members. The film won the 1986 Oscar for Best Documentary feature. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Director Robert Altman reteams with Cookie's Fortune scribe Anne Rapp for this tale of a Dallas gynecologist and the parade of anxious patients, haggard family members, and potential love interests who come his way. Richard Gere plays the titular role of Dr. Sullivan Travis, a calm, successful, and much sought-after ob-gyn who witnesses his normally stable life come apart over the course of one rainy autumn. As the film opens, Dr. T and his wife Kate (Farrah Fawcett) are preparing for the wedding of their Dallas Cowboys cheerleader daughter Dee Dee (Kate Hudson). Their other daughter -- the Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theorist Connie (Tara Reid) -- has her doubts about the impending nuptials, but Dr. T chalks them up to routine sibling jealousy. Meanwhile, escaping a messy divorce, boozy sister-in-law Peggy (Laura Dern) moves into the Travis household with her three toddler daughters in tow. For release, Dr. T finds solace target shooting and golfing (occasionally at the same time) with his buddies, and at his country club, he meets a beguiling golf pro, Bree (Helen Hunt). When the childlike Kate loses her grip on reality during a flatware shopping spree, Bree offers to give the kindly doctor some lessons in his swing -- both on and off the fairways. Dr. T had its North American Premiere at the 2000 Toronto International Film Fest. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Helen Hunt, (more)
Ann-Margret stars as a recently widowed woman who pursues her dream of becoming a country singer by heading to Nashville on a bus tour. ~ Carly Wray, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann-Margret, George Segal, (more)
