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Alison Elliott

Alison Elliott has created complex characters throughout an acting career marked by a discerning choice of roles. In 1995 she starred as a disgruntled wife turned femme fatale in Steven Soderbergh's highly stylized THE UNDERNEATH. That was soon followed by Elliott's breakout performance as a melancholy Appalachian ex-convict in THE SPITFIRE GRILL, which won the Audience Award in the dramatic competition at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival.

Elliott continued to demonstrate her range with the role of Millie Theale in THE WINGS OF THE DOVE, which was acclaimed at the Venice Film Festival and received four Academy Award nominations. For her part as the eccentric American heiress with failing health, Elliott was nominated for a Screen Actor's Guild Award. A double role in independent filmmaker Michael Almereyda's THE ETERNAL followed. Elliott was then cast as the heroine Thea Kronborg, an aspiring pianist turned opera star in THE SONG OF THE LARK, by Willa Cather, which initiated PBS's American Masterpiece Theater series. Elliott will soon be seen starring in the independent film RED BETSY, in which she plays a war widow in a close-knit Midwestern family who struggles with loss, change, and social progress during the 1940s.

Other notable performances include the title role of THE MIRACLE WORKER, Annie Sullivan, for The Wonderful World of Disney on ABC-TV, and the network's A WRINKLE IN TIME with Alfre Woodard and Kate Nelligan. For HBO Elliott starred as accused pre-school teacher Peggy Ann Buckey in the Emmy Award-winning INDICTMENT: THE MCMARTIN TRIAL. She also portrayed the status-hungry Virginia St. George in Edith Wharton's THE BUCCANEERS, produced by the BBC and aired as the opening presentation of PBS's 25th Anniversary celebration of Masterpiece Theater. Among her earlier film credits are Lawrence Kasden's WYATT EARP, in which Elliott co-starred with Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, and Gene Hackman.

Currently residing in Los Angeles and New York, the San Francisco native lived in Tokyo as a child and traveled extensively through Asia with her family. Upon returning to the U.S., she attended Catholic school, followed by a progressive hippy high school, where she discovered acting. She moved to Los Angeles at age 18 to pursue a career.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2004.
Read earlier biographies on this page.

Alison Elliott Facts

OccupationActress
BirthdayMay 19, 1970 (53)
SignTaurus
BirthplaceSan Francisco, California, USA

Selected Filmography

Griffin and Phoenix (2006)
A Wrinkle in Time (2004)
ER (2003) tv as Paula Martin
Red Betsy (2003)
The Miracle Worker (2000)
The Wings of the Dove (1997)
The Spitfire Grill (1996)
Indictment (1995)
The Underneath (1995)
Monkey Trouble (1994)
The Martian Chronicles (1980)
Birth
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