Katharine Juliet Ross (born January 29, 1940 - some sources say 1942 or 1943 - in Los Angeles, California) is an Academy Award-nominated American film and stage actress. Trained at the San Francisco Workshop, she is perhaps best known for her role as Elaine Robinson in the 1967 film The Graduate, opposite Dustin Hoffman, and her role as Etta Place in 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, opposite Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Ross was born in Hollywood, California, when her father was in the Navy. Her family later settled in Walnut Creek, California, east of San Francisco. She graduated from Las Lomas High School. She has lived in Malibu, California since the late 1960s.
While attending Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, CA she starred in a student film by Jim and Artie Mitchell (of O'Farrell Theater fame).
Ross is married to actor Sam Elliott, whom she met when they co-starred in the 1978 film, The Legacy. The couple married in 1984 and have one daughter, Cleo Rose.
Her prominent film roles include:
In 1979 she starred, with Hal Holbrook, Barry Bostwick, and Richard Anderson in the well received television movie "Murder by Natural Causes". She also starred in the 1980s television series The Colbys playing opposite Charlton Heston as Francesca Colby.
