Overnight, Katharine Juliet Ross went from being an unknown actress to a nominee for an Academy Award. Alongside Dustin Hoffman, she is best known for playing Elaine in The Graduate. Over the years, she developed into what many at the time referred to as a Hollywood bombshell.
Ross has had a long and fruitful career up to this point. She has been married five times, but her personal life hasn’t been quite as steady. Thankfully, her fifth union with adored actor Sam Elliott has been worthwhile waiting for.
Although Katharine Ross hasn’t appeared on television in a while, her life is far more complicated than just acting. She still maintains her true attractiveness today. Here is everything you need to know about Katharine Ross, including her current appearance at age 83.
On January 29, 1940, Katharine Ross was born in Hollywood, California. Unlike many other Hollywood celebrities, the young girl’s parents were not in the acting industry. Dudley, her father, was a U.S. Navy commander and an Associated Press correspondent. As a result, his family frequently relocated.
They started in Virginia, relocated to Palo Alto, California, and finally made their home in Walnut Creek, just outside San Francisco. Katharine was raised there and attended Las Lomas High School, where she received her diploma in 1957.
She continued to Santa Rosa Junior College, which would later play a crucial role in her future. She was initially exposed to acting at the school. Katharine Ross participated in her first theatrical performances, forever altering her life.
She participated in the school’s performance of The King and I and later decided to take acting seriously as a vocation. Katharine, however, decided to leave school after only a year. Instead, she moved into a tiny apartment above a grocery store and applied for The Actors Workshop in San Francisco.
Ross continued to hone her craft for three years, getting more and better at acting. She eventually managed to get a few bit parts in TV shows. She was not only a skilled actor but also a skilled auditioner.
Ross told Life Magazine in 1968, “I was the queen of the screen tests.” Runs every day in time for the Workshop’s curtain time from San Francisco to Los Angeles and returns. I took on the roles of several different hit-and-run drivers, including an innocent, hardened, and well-off, obnoxious teen. I played a compassionate crippled clubfoot on Gunsmoke.
College sweetheart Joel Fabiani, whom Ross married in 1960, was how Ross met her first husband. We’ll return to the fact that he was the first of her five spouses in a moment.
The years that followed her marriage to Fabiani were very important in Ross’ life. She rose to fame as a result of her numerous Western television appearances. She suited the genre nicely because she is a great beauty.
Being cast in numerous television shows may sound like a dream, but Katharine Ross’ life wasn’t all sunshine and flowers. She was abused and taken advantage of, just like many other people in the industry.
Life in the 1960s wasn’t all fun and games for some teenage TV stars.
“I recall taking a screen test for The Young Lovers, the solo movie Samuel Goldwyn Jr. ever directed. Peter Fonda was supposed to star in it, but Chad Everett was substituted since he couldn’t join me for the screen test. He was giving the screen test his all while unaware that the part had already been cast. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. I had a series of appointments with a hairstylist to get Sam’s desired look. They had removed my hair entirely by the time they were done. And ultimately, someone else was cast, Katharine told Variety.
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