Rosemary Harris

Rosemary Ann Harris, born on 19 September 1927 in Ashby De La Zouch, Leicestershire, England, is an actress whose stage career spans more than seven decades. The daughter of Stafford Berkeley Harris, an officer in the Royal Air Force, and Enid Maude Frances Harris, she spent part of her early childhood in India due to her father's military postings. One of her grandmothers was from Kronstadt, in what was then the Habsburg Empire and is today Romania. Harris trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1951 to 1952, having already begun her professional acting career in 1948 with repertory work in England, including a production of Kiss and Tell at Eastbourne and Margate and work with Anthony Cundell's company in Penzance.

Harris made her first New York appearance in 1951 in Moss Hart's Climate of Eden, followed by a West End debut in The Seven Year Itch at the Aldwych Theatre, which ran for a year. She subsequently worked with the Bristol Old Vic and the Old Vic, and in October 1963 appeared as Ophelia in the National Theatre Company's inaugural production of Hamlet, alongside Peter O'Toole in the title role. Her classical stage work also included the role of Elena in Laurence Olivier's celebrated 1962–63 Chichester Festival Theatre production of Uncle Vanya, a role she reprised in the 1963 British film adaptation opposite Olivier, Michael Redgrave, and Joan Plowright. Her Broadway debut came in 1952, and she continued to appear on Broadway through 2018.

The defining moment of Harris's Broadway career came in 1966 when she was cast as Eleanor of Aquitaine opposite Robert Preston's Henry II in The Lion in Winter at the Ambassador Theatre, earning her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. That recognition established her as one of the foremost stage actresses of her generation. Over the course of her Broadway career she accumulated nine Tony Award nominations in total, with additional nominated roles including Anna in Harold Pinter's Old Times (1972), Julie Cavendish in The Royal Family (1976), Heartbreak House (1984), Pack of Lies (1985), Hay Fever (1986), A Delicate Balance (1996), Waiting in the Wings (2000), and a return to The Royal Family (2010). Her Broadway credits also include An Inspector Calls and The Road to Mecca. Harris received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre in 2017 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1986.

Her Drama Desk Award wins reflect the same sustained excellence on the New York stage. She received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play in both 1976 and 1985, and is a four-time Drama Desk Award winner overall.

Harris's work in television brought her equally significant recognition. She starred in the BBC serial Notorious Woman in 1974, which aired in the United States on PBS as part of Masterpiece Theatre, portraying the writer George Sand. The performance earned her the 1976 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Two years later, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series Drama for her portrayal of Berta Palitz Weiss in the 1978 NBC miniseries Holocaust, which also featured Meryl Streep and James Woods. From 1979 to 1980 she starred in the CBS Western miniseries The Chisholms opposite Robert Preston.

Her film work includes Beau Brummell (1954) with Stewart Granger and Elizabeth Taylor, A Flea in Her Ear (1968) with Rex Harrison and Louis Jourdan, and The Boys from Brazil (1978), directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and featuring Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, and Denholm Elliott. She appeared in The Ploughman's Lunch (1983), directed by Richard Eyre and written by Ian McEwan, alongside Jonathan Pryce and Tim Curry, as well as in Crossing Delancey (1988), The Delinquents (1989), and The Bridge (1992). Her role in the historical drama Tom & Viv (1994) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in the 1983 BBC television adaptation of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, playing Mrs. Ramsay. Harris is additionally known to wide audiences for her portrayal of May Parker, the paternal aunt of Peter Parker, in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007).

Harris was first married to director Ellis Rabb, whom she met while he was developing the Association of Producing Artists; the two married on 4 December 1959 and later divorced in 1967. She subsequently married the American writer John Ehle. Originally from Ashby, England, Harris has maintained a career across stage, film, and television that has earned her recognition including an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award, and three Laurence Olivier Award nominations.