With her co-starring role in The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Juliet Ross initially gained notoriety. She received two nominations for the role: a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
The movie was a great hit, earning $104.9 million in the US and Canada, making it the most successful movie of 1967. Since The Graduate ends with Benjamin, played by Hoffman, saving Elaine, portrayed by Ross, from her wedding, the resolution is still a mystery. The two are later seen riding in a city bus with unexpected looks on their faces.”It’s usually advised to continue acting in a scene until the director tells you to stop. Mike held his tongue for a very long time. The talk stopped, but the camera remained rolling. How do I feel? Regarding the part that made her famous, Ross remarked, “I believe Elaine got off at the next stop.
“There was this New York stage performer named Dustin Hoffman. He was so pale that he appeared to have rolled out from under a rock. He merely wished to return to the off-Broadway production he was performing. I remember thinking, “Oh my God — this guy is dressed all in black, and he is white as a sheet,” on the first day, even though we eventually got to know and appreciate each other, Ross remembered in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.
You are aware that Gene Hackman, Dustin’s former roommate, was chosen to play my father. He bowed out, and I’m not sure exactly what the deal was.
Opposite her television appearance in Sam Benedict and her film debut in Shenandoah opposite James Stewart, Ross made her professional acting debut in 1962.
Although it wasn’t easy to be an actor in the 1960s, Ross began her career with a variety of roles in films like Hellfighters, Fools, The Final Countdown, A Climate for Killing, and many others.
“I recall taking a screen test for The Young Lovers, the sole movie Samuel Goldwyn Jr. ever directed. Peter Fonda was supposed to star in it, but since he couldn’t join me for the screen test, Chad Everett was substituted. 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. To get Sam’s desired look, I had a series of appointments with a hairstylist. They had completely removed all of my hair by the time they were done. And they ultimately chose someone else to play the part,” she previously told Variety. She added, “I’ll tell you what was amazing about it. The little $1 million budget films were viewed as the way forward at a time when the old studio system was on its deathbed and they were only beginning to test new techniques. And that did end up being the beginning of a fantastic new age that eventually gave rise to the independent film movement.
She received yet another important job in 1969. She starred in one of cinema’s most recognizable scenes when she balanced on the handlebars of an actor-pedaled bicycle in the now-legendary Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Ross and actor Sam Elliott have been happily married for the past forty or so years. She had been married four times before, and with Elliot, she had finally found true love.
They originally collaborated on a project for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but he was just an extra and lacked the confidence to approach her. He fell in love with her, and the beginning of one of the most exquisite love stories Hollywood has ever witnessed occurred.
I co-wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with my wife, Katharine Ross, but I didn’t dare approach her at the time. She played the lead role. I was a glorified extra in a bar scene, a shadow on the wall,” Elliott claimed to AARP The Magazine in 2015.
But it was a terrific chance because I got to watch them make the movie because I was a contract player with Fox and an extra on the show. While they were in Los Angeles, I spent a lot of time over there in a dim corner observing Katharine and the others at work, he recalled to The Oklahoman.
Ten years later, they once more found themselves collaborating on the Gothic horror film The Legacy.
Following the birth of their daughter, Cleo Rose Elliott, they continued to work as co-stars in movies including Travis McGee, Houston: The Legend of Texas, and Conagher. The Hero, in which Ross played his ex-wife and Elliott played an aging Western film star, starred the two in 2017.
“I think we just like making movies, and having that creative experience together is the best,” Elliott said to the Los Angeles Times in 2016.
It’s just enjoyable. Going home with someone you’re working with has a whole different energy than going home with someone you’re not working with. It has been an entirely positive experience.
We share a common sensibility, but we also work at being together, Elliot once observed in reference to the secret of a long and happy marriage. You don’t just ignore the s-t; you work past it. That’s how marriages endure.
