Illeana Douglas Popular Books

Illeana Douglas Biography & Facts

Illeana Hesselberg (; born July 25, 1961), known professionally as Illeana Douglas, is an American actress and filmmaker. She appeared in three episodes of Six Feet Under, for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series and won the Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series award from OFTA, the Online Film & Television Association, and in the TV series Action opposite Jay Mohr, for which she won a Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. As of 2015, she can be seen on Turner Classic Movies where she hosts specials focused on unheralded women directors from film history. Early life Douglas was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, the daughter of Joan Douglas (née Georgescu), a schoolteacher, and Gregory Hesselberg, a painter. Douglas's father was the son of Hollywood actor Melvyn Douglas and his wife, the artist Rosalind Hightower. Douglas had two older brothers, the late Stefan Gregor Hesselberg, a technician in the histology laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who also trained racehorses in Verona, Italy, and Erik Hesselberg, a journalist. Douglas grew up in Connecticut, in the Old Saybrook area, and has said that she was also raised in many other cities, in Massachusetts where her father lived, Connecticut where her mother lived, and New York, where her extended family lived. During her childhood she spent time going back and forth between relatives during the summer. Douglas said that her parents were heavily influenced by the 1970s hippie culture—her father especially by the movie Easy Rider. They had a loose parenting style and did not pressure her to go to college. Comedy albums were popular in her family. They would put on dramatic interpretations and performances. Douglas's mother's side is Roman Catholic—Italian and Romanian from Astoria, Queens. Her maternal grandmother worked in the restaurant at Gertz department store in Astoria; her maternal grandfather was a welder. Douglas said that her maternal grandmother, a former Rockette, had wanted to be an actor. She instilled in Douglas a love for the movies, which they attended together frequently when she was a child. As a child she would visit her paternal grandfather, the actor Melvyn Douglas, in his apartment in Manhattan on the Upper West Side as well as at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles. Douglas said that during her summers with her grandfather, he introduced her to his interests, which included theater, elocution, reading, art, and history. Douglas has said that her grandfather's performance in Being There was influential on her own career. In the 1940s, Douglas' grandfather and Peter Sellers both served in the military during WWII and met in Burma. In the 1960s, the two men reconnected in London and talked about their time together in the war. During high school, Douglas visited the set while they were shooting on location in Asheville, North Carolina and met Sellers, whose work she admired greatly. It was the first time she was on a film set. She graduated from Haddam-Killingworth High School in 1979. Douglas notes the contrast between her working-class Italian roots and the glamorous Hollywood world of her paternal side of the family. Famous people including Myrna Loy, Gore Vidal, Gloria Steinem, politicians, writers, and others were often present, in a salon-like environment. Douglas has said it took her a long time to reconcile the different lifestyles she was exposed to in her youth. She identifies more with the Italian side of her family, and has said that she developed more of their "rhythms and ways" due to the amount of time she spent with them in Queens. Career Early career After graduating from high school, Douglas moved to New York City. Having been interested in movies from her childhood, Douglas wanted to be in show business. She stayed with relatives in various temporary arrangements. Douglas attended American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she was a contemporary of Elias Koteas and Lou Mustillo. Following their first year, Mustillo and Douglas were not invited back to the school. When she was 18 years old, Douglas went to work for Steve Rubell at the Morgans Hotel. While there, Douglas decided to reinvent herself, and began attending Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where she studied with the acting teacher Richard Pinter. While she was working in a sketch comedy group called Manhattan Punchline, one of the troupe members suggested she try stand-up comedy. Douglas worked briefly at Stand Up New York, and found the writing and acting easy, but found the performing difficult. She did not like the raw comedy style then in vogue, and did not enjoy the lifestyle of a standup comic. Douglas began working for a well-known publicist, Peggy Siegal. Through this position, she tried to send her headshot to Martin Scorsese's casting director, but was not successful. At that time, Scorsese was editing his film Last Temptation of Christ in an office down the hall from Siegal's offices. The editors needed a sound effect to convey Mary Magdalene screaming, and asked her to help out. In this way, Douglas met Scorsese, his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, as well as filmmaker Michael Powell, and provided many ADR of crowd sounds. The group bonded over discussion of old films, which was a long-standing interest. Scorsese and Douglas eventually began a long-term relationship. Soon afterwards, she got her first movie role: a small part in Scorsese's segment of New York Stories. Douglas said that Lorraine Bracco took Douglas under her wing during the shooting of Scorsese's Goodfellas, helping her to find an agent. It was then that Douglas became Scorsese's girlfriend. Douglas appeared in Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991) – one of four Scorsese films in which she has appeared. After Cape Fear, she had several film roles where her character was eventually cut, including in Household Saints, Jungle Fever, and Quiz Show. "It was kind of depressing," she commented. Douglas acted in a low-budget movie called Grief that was accepted into Sundance, which led to her meeting director Allison Anders. Feature work Douglas had a supporting role in 1995's To Die For, a film that boosted her career in which the director Gus Van Sant taught her about the technical aspects of filmmaking, such as camera blocking, film lenses, and modulating a performance for film. It was also a movie where she felt that the Meisner technique she learned at the Neighborhood Playhouse started to connect for her. Douglas and Allison Anders wanted to collaborate on a film, and began work on a biography of Anne Sexton, which never came to fruition. As they were both interested in music, Douglas suggested a movie about the personalities of the Brill Building, where she had worked. This led to her first starring role as singer-songwriter Denise Waverly in Anders' 1996 film, Grace of My Heart. She had another suppor.... Discover the Illeana Douglas popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Illeana Douglas books.