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Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American retired actress. She made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a characteristic nuance and depth of character. Her accolades include an Academy Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She is the oldest living winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Woodward is perhaps best known for her performance as a woman with dissociative identity disorder in The Three Faces of Eve (1957), which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. Until his death in 2008, she was married for fifty years to actor Paul Newman, with whom she often collaborated either as a co-star, or as an actor in films directed or produced by him. In 1990, Woodward earned a bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College at age 60, graduating alongside her daughter Clea.
Attending the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, nine-year-old Woodward rushed into the parade of stars and sat on the lap of Laurence Olivier, star Vivien Leigh's partner. She eventually worked with Olivier in 1977 in a television production of Come Back, Little Sheba. During rehearsals, she mentioned this incident to him, and he told her he remembered.
Woodward lived in Thomasville, then lived in Blakely and Thomaston before her family relocated to Marietta, Georgia, where she attended Marietta High School. She remains a supporter of Marietta High School and of the city's Strand Theater.
The family moved once again to Greenville, South Carolina, when she was a junior in high school, after her parents divorced. She attended and graduated from Greenville High School. She also performed at Greenville's Little Theater.
Woodward majored in drama at Louisiana State University, where she was an initiate of Chi Omega sorority, then headed to New York City to perform on the stage. There, she studied at the Actors Studio and also studied under Sanford Meisner in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.
Woodward appeared in many other TV drama shows such as Tales of Tomorrow, Goodyear Playhouse, Danger, The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, You Are There, The Web, The Ford Television Theatre, The Elgin Hour, Robert Montgomery Presents, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The Star and the Story, Omnibus, Star Tonight, and Ponds Theater.
Woodward's first feature film was a post–Civil War Western, Count Three and Pray (1955). Woodward was billed second, and played a strong-willed orphan. She was signed to a long-term contract by 20th Century Fox in January 1956.Drama: Joanne Woodward's Pact Continued Los Angeles Times January 25, 1956: 20. For her next role, she starred in A Kiss Before Dying (1956) as an heiress pursued by a college student (Robert Wagner) who will stop at nothing to win her over.
Woodward's career included TV, stage and feature film acting. In 1956 she returned to Broadway to star in The Lovers. It had only a brief run (but was later filmed as The War Lord (1965)). She also appeared on television drama shows including Philco Playhouse, The 20th Century-Fox Hour, The United States Steel Hour, General Electric Theater, Four Star Playhouse, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Kraft Theatre, The Alcoa Hour, Studio One in Hollywood, and Climax.
With Woodward's credentials as a star attraction established, Fox gave her top billing in No Down Payment (1957), directed by Martin Ritt and produced by Jerry Wald. She was re-united with Ritt on another Faulkner adaptation, The Sound and the Fury (1959), with Yul Brynner. Sidney Lumet cast Woodward alongside Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani in The Fugitive Kind (1960), a box office disappointment. More popular was a third film with Newman, From the Terrace (1960), which Woodward later admitted to having "affection" for "because of the way I looked like Lana Turner"."The Newmans: 2 Lives in the Movies" byMel Gussow. The New York Times April 28, 1975: 33. The couple then made Paris Blues (1961) with Ritt. For her title role in The Stripper (1963), Joanne was coached in technique by burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee. In 1966, she appeared as Mary in A Big Hand for the Little Lady, and starred alongside Sean Connery in A Fine Madness. In Rachel Rachel (1968), produced and directed by Newman, Woodward played a schoolteacher hoping for love. This film won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
In 1972, Woodward starred in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. For this performance as a single mother challenged by her daughters (one of them played by her actual daughter, Nell Newman), she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. She then starred in the mid-life crisis drama Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973), written by Stewart Stern, for which she received another Oscar nomination for Best Actress.Haun, Harry (January 13, 1974). "Joanne Woodward: What You See Is All You Get: A Portrait of Joanne Woodward What You See Is All You Get". Los Angeles Times. p. n1.
Woodward was to have co-starred with Robert Shaw in Strindberg's The Dance of Death at Lincoln Center in 1974, but withdrew from the production during rehearsals. "New York puts a pressure on you that I don't react well to, with the critics and all that," she later said. "I like to act in a relaxed atmosphere."Lawson, Carol (September 17, 1981). "Joanne Woodward Had 'A Movie-Star Dream. The New York Times, p. C.19.
Woodward supported Burt Reynolds in The End (1978), and as the '70s progressed did more television drama. She did A Christmas to Remember (1979) on TV. The decade ended with The Streets of L.A. (1979). Woodward also directed an episode of Family in 1979. For TV, she appeared in Come Back, Little Sheba (1977) with Laurence Olivier, and See How She Runs (1978). The latter won her an Emmy.John F. O'Connor (February 1, 1978). "TV: Joanne Woodward, 40, 'Sweet' and Running", The New York Times. p. C23.
Woodward's credits in the 1980s included The Shadow Box (1980), directed by Newman, and Crisis at Central High (1981) for TV. She also returned to Broadway for Candida (1981–1982), a production directed by Michael Cristofer that was filmed in 1982. She starred in Harry & Son (1984), again directed by and co-starring Newman, and some television films, Passions (1984) and Do You Remember Love (1985). Woodward also did some screenwriting and direction at this time, for instance writing and directing a 1982 production of Shirley Jackson's story Come Along with Me; and starred in The Glass Menagerie (1987).
Woodward also found critical success on the small screen. She won Emmy Awards Awards for her work as an actress on See How She Runs (1978) and Do You Remember Love? (1985). As a producer, she won another Emmy for Broadway's dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theater in 1990. Woodward also returned to TV to do "The 80 Yard Run" for Playhouse 90.
Woodward and Newman appeared in many films together during the 1950s and '60s. The first was The Long Hot Summer (1958), followed by Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958), From the Terrace (1960), Paris Blues (1961), and A New Kind of Love (1963). They returned to Broadway in Baby Want a Kiss (1964), which ran for more than a hundred performances. Woodward was also directed by her husband in many projects. The first of these was Newman's directorial debut, Rachel, Rachel (1968). Husband and wife both earned Golden Globe Awards and Oscar nominations. They also acted together in Winning (1969), WUSA (1970) and The Drowning Pool (1975). Woodward also collaborated with her daughters, appearing with Nell Newman in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), which was directed by Paul Newman, and with Melissa Newman in the TV movie See How She Runs (1978).
Only two months after their wedding, Woodward won her first Academy Award. Newman earned his first nomination later that year, in 1959, for Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958). Both at the top of their game as film stars, Woodward and Newman became a celebrity power couple and were featured in countless magazines and articles for the next fifty years. Woodward's family life, she felt, deepened at the expense of her film career. She later said:
Initially, I probably had a real movie-star dream. It faded somewhere in my mid-30s, when I realized I wasn't going to be that kind of actor. It was painful. Also, I curtailed my career because of my children. Quite a bit. I resented it at the time, which was not a good way to be around the children. Paul was away on location a lot. I wouldn't go on location because of the children. I did once, and felt overwhelmed with guilt.Woodward's final screen performance with Newman (and last appearance to date, excluding voiceover roles) was in the 2005 cable miniseries Empire Falls.
In 1993, Woodward appeared in the film Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks, and, in the same year, narrated Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence. Woodward did two additional television films: Foreign Affairs (1993) and Blind Spot (1993). Woodward was a co-producer of Blind Spot, a drama about drug addiction, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Mini-Series or a Movie.Woodward Finds Her Forum The Actress Sees TV Films as a 'Teaching Tool' for Timely Issues: Home Granville, Kari. Los Angeles Times May 2, 1993: 6. She co-starred in the television film Breathing Lessons (1995). Also in 1995, Woodward directed off-Broadway revivals of Clifford Odets' Golden Boy and Waiting for Lefty at the Blue Light Theater Company in New York.
In the twenty-first century, Woodward moved more into production and directorial roles. She served as the artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse from 2001 to 2005.Simonson, Robert. "Joanne Woodward to Step Down as Westport Playhouse Artistic Director." Retrieved July 21, 2015 She was executive producer of the 2003 television production of Our Town, featuring Newman as the stage manager (for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award). She and Newman also appeared in Empire Falls (2005) for TV. Woodward also recorded a reading of singer John Mellencamp's song "The Real Life" for his box set On the Rural Route 7609.
Woodward had the lead in Change in the Wind (2010). In 2011, she narrated the Scholastic/Weston Woods film All the World.
In 2022, Woodward and Newman were the subject of a six-part documentary by Ethan Hawke, The Last Movie Stars, which premiered on HBO Max.
Woodward first met Newman at their agent's office. They were understudies for the play Picnic in 1953. In the midst of this they starred in The Long, Hot Summer in 1957. Newman divorced his wife Jackie Witte, with whom he already had three children, and married Woodward on January 29, 1958, in Las Vegas. On March 28 of the same year, Woodward won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Three Faces of Eve. The couple remained married for 50 years until Newman's death from lung cancer on September 26, 2008. "Remembering Paul Newman." People. September 27, 2008. Woodward has said, "He's very good-looking and very sexy and all of those things but all that goes out the window finally, and what finally is left is if you can make somebody laugh. And he sure does keep me laughing". Newman attributed their relationship success to "some combination of lust and respect and patience. And determination".
When Paul Newman was asked, in an interview with Playboy magazine, how he remained faithful to Woodward, Newman responded, "I have steak at home; why go out for hamburger?" Woodward has three daughters with Newman, Nell Newman (1959), Melissa Newman (1961) and Claire Olivia "Clea" (1965).
She took up ballet in her thirties as a way to stay in shape, eventually going en pointe. Woodward and Newman were mentors to Allison Janney, whom they had met when Janney, a Kenyon College freshman, was cast in a play that Newman directed. Janney acknowledged this support in her Oscar speech.
Woodward and Newman were supporters of the Democratic Party. They were conspicuous supporters of Senator Eugene McCarthy in his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign, attending a benefit for his campaign at Arthur's Restaurant on April 1, 1968. Documents declassified in 2017 show that the National Security Agency had created a biographical file on Woodward as part of its monitoring of prominent US citizens whose names appeared in signals intelligence.
In 1988, Newman and Woodward established the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a nonprofit residential summer camp, and year-round center named after the Wyoming mountain hideaway of the outlaws in Newman's film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The camp, located in Ashford, Connecticut, provides free services to 20,000 children and their families coping with cancer and other serious illnesses. In 2012, their daughter Clea Newman took charge of the camp's parent organization, the SeriousFun Children's Network.
In 1990, after working toward her bachelor's degree for more than 10 years, Woodward graduated from Sarah Lawrence College along with her daughter Clea. Paul Newman delivered the commencement address, during which he said he dreamed that a woman had asked, "How dare you accept this invitation to give the commencement address when you are merely hanging on to the coattails of the accomplishments of your wife?" People Magazine, June 11, 1990. People Archive. Retrieved July 6, 2010. In 1992, along with Newman, Woodward was awarded the Kennedy Center honors for lifetime achievement.
Woodward, widowed since 2008, lived for many years in Westport, Connecticut, where she and Newman raised their daughters. She retreated from public life following a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in 2007. She relocated to Santa Monica, California to be near her daughters following her diagnosis. Woodward last appeared publicly in 2013.
| 1955 | Count Three and Pray | Lissy | |
| 1956 | Dorothy "Dorie" Kingship | ||
| 1957 | Eve White / Eve Black / Jane | ||
| No Down Payment | Leola Boone | ||
| 1958 | Clara Varner | ||
| Rally Round the Flag, Boys! | Grace Oglethorpe Bannerman | ||
| 1959 | Quentin Compson / Narrator | ||
| 1960 | Carol Cutrere | ||
| From the Terrace | Mary St. John | ||
| 1961 | Paris Blues | Lillian Corning | |
| 1963 | Lila Green | ||
| Samantha "Sam" Blake / Mimi | |||
| 1964 | Signpost to Murder | Molly Thomas | |
| 1966 | Mary | ||
| Rhoda Shillitoe | |||
| 1968 | Rachel, Rachel | Rachel Cameron | |
| 1969 | Winning | Elora Capua | |
| 1970 | WUSA | Geraldine | |
| 1971 | They Might Be Giants | Dr. Mildred Watson | |
| 1972 | Beatrice Hunsdorfer | ||
| 1973 | Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams | Rita Walden | |
| 1975 | Iris Devereaux | ||
| 1978 | Jessica Lawson | ||
| 1984 | Harry & Son | Lilly | |
| 1987 | The Glass Menagerie | Amanda Wingfield | |
| 1990 | Mr. & Mrs. Bridge | India Bridge | |
| 1993 | Narrator | Voice | |
| Philadelphia | Sarah Beckett | ||
| 1996 | Even If a Hundred Ogres... | Narrator | Voice |
| 2010 | Change in the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | Voice |
| 2012 | Gayby | Jenn's Mother | Voice, uncredited |
| 2013 | Lucky Them | Doris | Voice, also executive producer |
| 1952 | Tales of Tomorrow | Pat | Episode: "The Bitter Storm" |
| 1952–1953 | Omnibus | Ann Rutledge | Episode: "Mr. Lincoln" |
| 1953–1954 | The Philco Television Playhouse | Emily | Episode: "The Dancers" |
| 1954 | Ford Theatre | June Ledbetter | Episode: "Segment" |
| The Elgin Hour | Nancy | Episode: "High Man" | |
| Lux Video Theatre | Jenny Townsend | Episode: "Five Star Final" | |
| 1952–1954 | Robert Montgomery Presents | Elsie / Penny | 2 episodes |
| 1955 | The Star and the Story | Jill Andrews | Episode: "Dark Stranger" |
| The 20th Century Fox Hour | Eleanor Apley | Episode: "The Late George Apley" | |
| The United States Steel Hour | Rocky | Episode: "White Gloves" | |
| 1954–1956 | Four Star Playhouse | Ann Benton / Terry Thomas / Victoria | 3 episodes |
| 1954–1956 | Studio One | Christiana / Daisy / Lisa | 3 episodes |
| 1956 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Beth Paine | Season 1 Episode 39: "Momentum" |
| GE True | Ann Rutledge | Episode: "Prologue to Glory" | |
| The Alcoa Hour | Margaret Spencer | Episode: "The Girl in Chapter One" | |
| Climax! | Katherine | Episode: "Savage Portrait" | |
| 1958 | Playhouse 90 | Louise Darling | Episode: "The 80 Yard Run" |
| 1971 | All the Way Home | Mary Follet | Television film |
| 1976 | The Carol Burnett Show | Midge Gibson | Episode: "The Family: Friend from the Past" |
| Sybil | Dr. Cornelia B. Wilbur | Miniseries | |
| 1977 | Come Back, Little Sheba | Lola Delaney | Television film |
| 1978 | See How She Runs | Betty Quinn | Television film |
| A Christmas to Remember | Mildred McCloud | Television film | |
| 1979 | The Streets of L.A. | Carol Schramm | Television film |
| 1980 | The Shadow Box | Beverly | Television film |
| 1981 | Crisis at Central High | Elizabeth Huckaby | Television film |
| 1982 | Candida | Candida | Television film |
| 1984 | Passions | Catherine Kennerly | Television film |
| 1985 | Do You Remember Love | Barbara Wyatt-Hollis | Television film |
| 1993 | Foreign Affairs | Vinnie Miner | Television film |
| Blind Spot | Nell Harrington | Television film | |
| The Roots of Woe | Margaret Sanger | Voice, television film | |
| 1994 | Breathing Lessons | Maggie Moran | Television film |
| 2003 | Our Town | N/A | Television film, executive producer |
| 2005 | Empire Falls | Francine Whiting | Miniseries |
| 1955 | The Lovers | Douane | Leslie Stevens | Martin Beck Theatre, Broadway | |
| 1964 | Baby Want a Kiss | Mavis | James Costigan | Little Theatre, Broadway | |
| 1981 | Candida | Candida | George Bernard Shaw | Circle in the Square, Broadway | |
| 2002 | Our Town | Artistic Director | Thorton Wilder | Booth Theater, Broadway | |
Woodward won 2 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie: for See How She Runs as a divorced teacher who trains for a marathon; and in Do You Remember Love as a professor who begins to suffer from Alzheimer's disease. She has been nominated an additional 5 times for her roles on TV.
A popular (but untrue) bit of Hollywood lore is that Woodward was the first celebrity to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In fact, the original 1,550 stars were created and installed as a unit in 1960; no one star was officially "first". The first star actually completed was director Stanley Kramer's. The origin of this legend is not known with certainty, but according to Johnny Grant, the long-time Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, Woodward was the first celebrity to agree to pose with her star for photographers, and therefore was singled out in the collective public imagination as the first awardee.
In 1994, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman were jointly presented the Award for Outstanding Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards for Public Service.
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