Katharine Juliet Ross rose to fame as a co-star with Dustin Hoffman in the film The Graduate. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
With $104.9 million in revenue in the US and Canada, the film was a big hit and topped the 1967 box office rankings. In the pivotal sequence of The Graduate, it is unclear how Benjamin (Hoffman) will prevent Elaine (Ross) from getting married. Later, when the two are seen sitting on a city bus, onlookers are taken aback by their sudden presence.
You are instructed to keep going until the director says, “Cut,” in every scene. For a while, Mike kept it to himself. We had run out of things to say, but the film was still in the editing bay. How do I think? “I think Elaine got off at the next stop,” Ross remarked, referring to the scene that made Elaine famous.
[Dustin Hoffman] performed in theaters in New York. His pale appearance gave the impression that he had just emerged from under a rock. His only desire was to go back to his off-Broadway production. Even though we eventually grew to know and enjoy one other, Ross told the Houston Chronicle, “My first thought that day was, ‘Oh my God— this guy is dressed all in black, and he is white as a sheet.”
As you are aware, Gene Hackman, Dustin’s former roommate, was cast as my father. I’m not sure what the circumstances were when he pulled away.
In the TV show Sam Benedict, Ross made his professional acting debut in 1962. After that, she co-starred with James Stewart in the movie Shenandoah.
Even though Ross starred in several movies early in her long and illustrious career, including Hellfighters, Fools, The Final Countdown, A Climate for Killing, and many more, being an actor in the 1960s was not easy.
“I recall doing a screen test for Samuel Goldwyn Jr.’s lone feature film, The Young Lovers. Although Peter Fonda was supposed to play the lead, he was unable to attend the screen test, thus Chad Everett was cast in that part instead. Unaware that the role had been cast, he gave the screen test his best effort. I was too cowardly to be honest with him. I made a number of trips to the hairdresser to get my look just the way Sam desired. My hair had been hacked off in its entirety when they were finished. “And in the end, they cast someone else,” she had previously revealed to Variety. “I’ll tell you what was great about it,” she remarked. “The $1 million budget pictures were considered the standard at the time, and they were just beginning to experiment with new techniques as the old studio system was collapsing.” And as it happened, it marked the beginning of the amazing new period that would eventually give rise to the independent film movement.
In 1969, she was assigned yet another significant duty. Actor Paul Newman was riding a bicycle when she made an iconic cameo in the now-famous film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. She was cast in the role.
Ross and actor Sam Elliott have had a wonderful marriage for around 40 years. She had been married four times before she married Elliot, and she had finally discovered true love in him.
He was an extra at first and lacked the guts to approach her, but they ended up collaborating on the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. She captured his attention, and so began one of the most beautiful collaborations in Hollywood history.
“My wife, Katharine Ross, and I worked on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but at the time, I didn’t dare approach her. The primary woman was her. In 2015, Elliott remarked, “I was a glorified extra in a bar scene, a shadow on the wall,” to AARP The Magazine.
He told The Oklahoman, “It was a fantastic experience to sit in and watch them produce the film as a contract player with Fox and an extra on the show.” “During their time in Los Angeles, I watched Katharine and the others work a lot from a dark corner.”
Ten years later, they collaborated again on the Gothic horror film The Legacy.
They went on to co-star in many films, including as Travis McGee, Houston: The Legend of Texas, and Conagher, after welcoming daughter Cleo Rose Elliott. Elliott was an aging Western movie star in The Hero; Ross was his ex-wife.
“I think we just like making movies, and having that creative experience together is the best,” Elliott stated to the Los Angeles Times in 2016.
It’s just fun. The atmosphere when returning home with coworkers differs greatly from that of returning home with a non-worker. It’s a truly delightful encounter.
Elliot previously stated that the secret to a long and happy marriage is having similar sensibilities and actively trying to spend time together. You work through the crap instead of just walking away from it. “That’s how relationships last.”
