Here's why you should appreciate Lee Grant: Actress, Director, bold woman way ahead of her time.
A journey through Lee Grant's legendary career.
One of the ways that I get into watching new films is through binging all of the work of one actress. It started out with Nicole Kidman years ago, when I initially fell in love with film, and since then I’ve binge-watched a handful of actress’ filmographies, watching everything I can find. It hadn’t really happened for me in a couple years, since watching Rachel Weisz in The Favourite in December of 2019. But last month I watched a performance that instantly knocked me off of my feet. It immediately became one of my favourite performances of all time: Lee Grant in Hal Ashby’s The Landlord. It’s a gutsy, brave, committed, and spontaneous performance. The film is excellent as well: a fascinating tale of gentrification and white liberalism in New York City in the early 70s, that feels very modern, even though it was made 51 years ago.
Pearl Bailey and Lee Grant getting drunk on carbonated wine in my favourite scene from The Landlord
After watching that performance, I knew. This was it, I was going to watch everything I could find from this actress. I had only seen her in a small but interesting role in Defending Your Life, and in her cameo in Mulholland Dr. before this year, and unfortunately I didn’t really know anything else about Lee. In the past month, I’ve watched over 50 of her films (basically everything available either on the internet or on DVD), as well as 7 she has directed. I also read her beautiful memoir, I Said Yes To Everything, in which she details her career and life in an equally entertaining and touching way. I don’t know how anyone could read it and not be completely endeared. Lee is an Oscar winner, a two-time Emmy winner, a Directors Guild of America Award winner (the first woman to win one for directing a film), and she directed an Oscar-winning documentary. But even so, she is underrated. Lee mentioned in her memoir that she never had the desire to be a leading actress in feature films, as the pressures of succeeding at the box office were not worth it, so almost all of her feature film roles are supporting ones. She did lead films on television, and often played the lead in the theatre, portraying iconic roles on stage like Regina in The Little Foxes, Gittel in Two for the Seesaw, the titular roles in Electra and Gigi, Eliza in Pygmalion, Sally Bowles in I am a Camera, Solange in The Maids, Edna in The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Ninotchka in Silk Stockings, the three female roles in Plaza Suite, and many more.
Lee with her Emmy for The Neon Ceiling in 1971 and Oscar for Shampoo in 1976
Lee is also a survivor of the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s. Regrettably, I admit that I didn’t know very much about this dark period of history, past watching Trumbo when it came out. Lee was blacklisted because she spoke at a memorial for a blacklisted actor and friend, who was being hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee at the time, and had heart problems. He ended up dying of a heart attack. At his memorial, Lee was asked to speak in front of the audience, and said that she thought HUAC played a part in this actor’s death, and days later, her name was added to the list. Lee had just made her film debut in William Wyler’s Detective Story, scoring her first Oscar nomination, and winning Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for a small role. She had huge and sudden success, and then her potential career was taken away from her. Lee couldn’t act on screen for 12 years, from ages 24-36: let’s face it, those are the years when a woman is most viable in Hollywood. Lee has said she wasn’t very political before the blacklist period, but used that time to educate herself, and actively fought against the blacklist, and for many other important social causes from that point on.
“The education that I got through the people who I made friends with who were also blacklisted was a turning point. It made me who I am today.” - Lee Grant in 2017
When her name was finally taken off of the list in the mid 1960s, after almost everyone blacklisted was already back to work, she came back, and she came back with ferocity.
Lee Grant in Valley of the Dolls
Lee Grant’s career is a long one, she is alive today and is in her early-to-mid 90s. I say that because she has admitted to lying about her age a… few times since she got off the blacklist, even convincing the mayor of LA at the time to change her birthdate on her driver’s license. I say good for her. She was coming back after 12 years were essentially stolen from her. Lee mentioned in her memoir that she had a rage inside of her because of the careers and lives that were unjustly derailed for often unsubstantial and ridiculous political reasons at the time. She channeled that rage into an incredible run in upwards of 60 roles on film and television between 1965 and 1980, before she shifted her main focus to directing. In those 15 years, Lee gave one dynamite performance after another.
Lee Grant has a remarkable capacity to portray very capable, powerful women. She has a sharp voice, and often a kind of sophisticated air to her that allowed her to really flourish in roles like her Oscar-winning turn in Shampoo, her Emmy-nominated turn on the television film/pilot for Columbo: Ransom for a Dead Man, her Oscar-nominated turn in The Landlord, in the camp classic Valley of the Dolls, and in her scene stealing role in the disaster flick Airport ’77. On the flip side, she is just as magnificent at portraying women who inhabit a deep well of desperation, of loneliness, of dire need in performances such as her Emmy-winning role as a depressed housewife in one of the better television films I have ever seen, The Neon Ceiling, in a very absurd and haunting The Mafu Cage, in her Emmy-winning role as the bad girl next door in Peyton Place, and in her film debut as a naive shoplifter in Detective Story. She can do it all, and has convincingly portrayed every shade of power, vulnerability, and everything in between. There is enormous range in her performances, but one thing does stick out as a thread that ties them together: Lee is going to keep you guessing. Each character she plays is a fully realized woman. She makes so many choices that you simply could never anticipate: a little laugh between words, a change in the pitch of her distinct voice, a look, a movement, a pause. You can’t take your eyes off of her or you will miss something. On top of being completely real, when the film calls for it, she can absolutely deliver a necessary dose of camp, like in films such as The Spell, Airport ’77, and Damien: Omen II. No matter the quality of the film, or the size of the role, Lee Grant is always going to surprise you, entertain you, and make you feel something.
From left: Lee in Detective Story, In the Heat of the Night, Ransom for a Dead Man, & Shampoo
Lee has said in interviews that after she won the Oscar for Shampoo in 1976, she felt that as a woman who was around 50 years old at the time, her career as an actress would be limited from that point on. Hollywood is not the most enjoyable place to age. It was then that Lee started to direct. She took her career into her own hands, in a time when women weren’t really in as much of a position to do that as Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Regina King among others are thankfully more able to do now. Lee directed a few touching feature and television films in the 80s and 90s, as well as documentaries on a variety of prescient social issues: women in prison (When Women Kill), transgender individuals ( What Sex Am I?, made years before Paris is Burning would come out), women fighting in courts for custody of their children (Women on Trial), women in abusive relationships (Battered), and the Oscar-winning documentary, Down and Out in America, which was about the Reagan era, and how homelessness and unemployment were ravaging the United States at that time. Lee has said that as she was blacklisted and felt like she couldn’t speak her mind for so long, this was a way of using her voice, and showing people what was happening in the world right around them. Down and Out in America, Battered, When Women Kill, What Sex Am I? and The Willmar Eight, a documentary about eight women from Minnesota who went on strike for over a year to protest their workplace’s gender inequality, are both streaming on Kanopy right now, if you have access to it through a school or library. I highly recommend all of them. Lee also directed biographies for the series Intimate Portrait, profiling and giving insight into the lives of influential women like Gloria Steinem, Madeline Kahn, Dionne Warwick, Bea Arthur, Bella Abzug, Vanessa Redgrave, Florence Griffith Joyner, Laura Dern, Kristi Yamaguchi, Betty Friedan, Mo’Nique and many more.
Jane Fonda and Lee Grant at an Equal Rights Amendment rally in the 70s, and Lee speaking at a Women’s Lives Women’s Equality rally in the 80s
I went into this Lee Grant career marathon for her dynamic, courageous, human performances, and I stayed for her perseverance, integrity, and commitment to shining a light in this world. Lee’s fierce dedication to portraying real women and the issues they face, both in her acting, and in her directing of works of fiction and documentaries is inspiring, and it has been the greatest pleasure experiencing so much of her work for the first time this year.
Here are some of my favourite Lee Grant films that you should check out:
The Landlord (1970) directed by Hal Ashby
A fascinating social satire scripted by the wonderful black writer and director Bill Gunn, with gorgeous performances by Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey, and Lee Grant: it doesn’t get much better than that.
The Neon Ceiling (1971) directed by Frank Pierson
A depressed housewife takes her daughter on an adventure in the desert, and meets a lonely man who owns a gas station with a ceiling covered in neon lights along the way. I really love this one, and it’s currently available in full for free on youtube!
The Mafu Cage (1978) directed by Karen Arthur
A pair of sisters live in an overgrown mansion with an ape that their father left for them when he died. One sister, played by Carol Kane, is delving into madness and barbarism, while Lee Grant’s character tries to keep everything together. This one almost feels like a predecessor to what Yorgos Lanthimos is doing now. The performances, sets, and direction are outstanding. There are some definite trigger warnings for this one, so if that concerns you, please feel free to ask.
Shampoo (1975) directed by Hal Ashby
A deceptively light film about a hair stylist who can’t keep his pants on. Yet it’s the women (Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, Lee Grant, & Carrie Fisher) who really stand out in this social satire on sexual politics in the lead up to Richard Nixon’s election.
In the Heat of the Night (1967) directed by Norman Jewison
A Best Picture winning tale on race relations in the south in the 60s that feels far too relevant today. The editing and performances are riveting.
Columbo: Ransom for a Dead Man (1971) directed by Richard Irving
This was the television pilot for the detective series Columbo. The episode was made as a television film that can and does stand on its own. Lee Grant plays a woman who murders her husband and wears the most fabulous outfits while doing so.
Detective Story (1951) directed by William Wyler
ACAB, but Lee Grant’s performance as a very young and nervous shoplifter spending a day in a police station is absolutely worth checking out. It was her first role on Broadway and in film.
Plaza Suite (1971) directed by Arthur Hiller
A Neil Simon comedy composed of three vignettes, each set in a room in New York's Plaza Hotel. Lee Grant stars in the third one with Walter Matthau as a couple trying to convince their daughter, who has locked herself in the washroom on her wedding day, to come out. Hilarity ensues.
Check out Lee’s documentaries as well, most of which are streaming on Kanopy, as I mentioned earlier. If you want more recommendations, I would be more than happy to oblige. Now go forth, check out a film that she’s acted in or directed, watch an interview of hers, read her memoir, be inspired.