Ellen Burstyn

Actress Ellen Burstyn enjoyed her greatest prominence during the 1970s, a decade during which she was a virtual fixture of Academy Award voters' ballots. Born Edna Rae Gillooly in Detroit, MI, on December 7, 1932, as a teen she studied dancing and performed in an acrobatic troupe; she later became a model for paperback book covers, subsequently dancing in a Montreal nightclub under the name "Keri Flynn." In 1954 she was tapped to appear as a Gleason Girl on television's Jackie Gleason Show, and in 1957 made her Broadway debut in Fair Game, again with a new stage name -- "Ellen...