Mother of actress Melissa Newman, whose namesake was the character portrayed by Woodward in Count Three and Pray (1955).
When she was 9 years old, Joanne traveled with her mother to Atlanta for the premiere of Gone with the Wind (1939). During the parade, she lept into a limousine carrying Laurence Olivier and sat in his lap as she had a crush on him after seeing Wuthering Heights (1939). Years later when the two were working on Come Back, Little Sheba (1977) (TV), Olivier claimed to remember the incident vividly.
Is left-handed.
Attended LSU and then headed to New York. She did not attend Sarah Lawrence until much later. She graduated in 1990 alongside her youngest daughter Claire "Clea" Newman.
Wore a hand-made dress that cost about $100 dollars to the 1957 Oscar ceremony (the year she won Best Actress for Three Faces of Eve.)
Serves as artistic director, Westport Country Playhouse, near her home in Connecticut, where husband Paul stars in "Our Town" June 2002.
Loves ballet and horse-back riding
Joanne has three children with Paul Newman: Elinor (Nell), Melissa (Lissy) and Claire (Clea)
In 1960 Joanne Woodward became the first actress to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Lived next door to her idol, Bette Davis, for awhile.
Her favorite movies are Gone with the Wind (1939), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940) and Jezebel (1938).
Her all-time favorite actress is Bette Davis and her all-time favorite actor is Laurence Olivier. Other major favorites of hers include John Garfield, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn and Clark Gable.
Had to have her strip/dance scenes in The Stripper (1963) censored and approved by her husband, Paul Newman.
Was a graduate from the class of 1947 at Greenville Senior High School in Greenville, South Carolina.
Her likeness was used for the paintings of Marguerite Wyke in the Laurence Olivier/Michael Caine thriller Sleuth (1972).
Was briefly engaged to novelist, essayist and screenwriter Gore Vidal before breaking the engagement to pledge herself to eventual husband Paul Newman. The new couple, who remained friends with Vidal, briefly lived with him in a house in Los Angeles.
In the July 21, 1975 issue of People magazine, in which she shared the cover with her husband Paul Newman, Woodward claimed that her older relatives back in a small town in rural Georgia would be upset if they knew that Newman was half-Jewish.
She and her husband Paul Newman are the only couple to win acting Academy Awards while they were married.
Played mother to real-life daughter Nell Potts in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
Mother of Nell Potts
Joanne told a seventeen-year-old Melanie Griffith on the set of Drowning Pool (1975) that her goals were to marry a movie star (Paul Newman); have beautiful babies (she had 3); and win an Oscar (which she did in 1958). Melanie said that she adopted the goals for herself by marrying a movie star (Antonio Banderas); have beautiful babies (she also had 3); but has expressed frustration that she hasn't won an Oscar even though she was nominated in 1989.
Joanne Woodward Detailed Biography
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an Oscar winning American actress.
Woodward was born in Thomasville, Georgia, and was influenced to become an actress by her mother's love of movies. Her mother wanted to name her after Joan Crawford, but then her parents felt that the name "Joanne" was more Southern. Attending the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, nine-year-old Joanne rushed out into the parade of stars and sat on the lap of Laurence Olivier, star Vivien Leigh's husband. She eventually worked with Olivier in 1979, in a television production of Come Back, Little Sheba.
Woodward and Robert Wagner in A Kiss Before Dying
Woodward won many beauty contests as a teenager. She allegedly snubbed late actress Susan Oliver in 1957 though they had once been friends. She majored in drama at Louisiana State University, then headed to New York City to perform on the stage.
Woodward's first film was Count Three and Pray, in 1955. She continued to move between Hollywood and Broadway, eventually understudying in the New York production of Picnic with another young actor, Paul Newman. The two were married in 1958. By that time, Woodward had starred in The Three Faces of Eve, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She and Newman first starred together that year in The Long Hot Summer, one of many collaborations. The last movie they appeared in together (to great acclaim) was Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, which earned Woodward her last Oscar nomination.
Woodward has continued to act on stage, films and television.
