Shirley Knight (1936-2020)
Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 11:00PM by Nathaniel R
Two-time Oscar nominee Shirley Knight has passed away at 83 years of age of natural causes. Knight began her enduring screen career with guest starring roles in TV series of the 1950s in her early twenties and by 1959 she'd made her credited big screen debut as a nun in the violent B movie Five Gates to Hell (1959). It didn't take her long to achieve the pinnacle of Hollywood accolades, though, with nominations for Best Supporting Actress for just her third and fourth movies (the family drama Dark at the Top of the Stairs in 1960 and the Tennessee Williams adaptation Sweet Bird of Youth in 1962...
She didn't rest on the laurels that came with those two career-making good girl parts and stepped into more daring roles. She headlined Frances Ford Coppola's The Rain People (1969) about a pregnant housewife reevaluating her choices and took a controversial turn in Dutchman (1966) a race drama about a promiscuous girl who seduces a black man. The result of the latter? A prestigious Volpi Cup win at Venice.
with Robert Duvall in "The Rain People"
Though her leading lady years may have been brief, not lasting beyond the 1960s, she worked steadily ever afterwards in supporting and guest roles. Her career accolades include eight Emmy nominations (with three wins), and two Tony nominations (with one win). Sweet Bird of Youth remains her most famous film (it helps to have Paul Newman and Geraldine Page as co-stars and Tennessee Williams language to guide you!) but other noteworthy or hit films followed over the decades including Petulia (1968), The Rain People (1969), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), Endless Love (1981), As Good As It Gets (1997), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009).
Do you have a favourite Shirley Knight performance?
Reader Comments (31)
I had the privilege to see Knight's Tony Award winning work in Kennedy's Children in the 1970s .As Carla, she sat at the bar and poured out her story as the alcohol slowly eroded her speech, posture and alertness. Knight had the ability in a series of monologues to expose a heartbreaking vulnerability that made her work the finest of that Broadway season. At the end of the night, I pounded my hands to a dull ache during the ovation. For me, this was her finest moment.
I think her most memorable line reading for me is when Helen Hunt yells out for a normal boyfriend in As Good As It Gets: "Everyone wants that, dear. It doesn't exist."
Her fight to get them to go out come to mind as well. Glad we got to see her in later life roles, and I've heard comments today that she was wonderful on Desperate Housewives. RIP.
It’s Petulia, not Petunia
Thx
Dang it. I really liked her. Favorite would probably be As Good As It Gets, but I enjoyed her back in her ingenue era too.
And huh. She was in both Juggernaut and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. I like disaster movies but being a working actor in the 1970s must have been its own kind of thing.
"Her career accolades include eight Emmy nominations (with two wins)"
Shirley Knight actually won three Emmys. For Best Guest Star in Drama Series (Thirtysomething) Best Guest Actress in Drama Series (NYPD Blue) and Best Supporting Actress in T.V Movie (Indictment: The McMartin Trial) the last two the same year (1995)
Is she the actress Amy Adams has said during one of her frequent round table interviews she wanted to create a project around?
Exquisite actress.
@3rtful: I'm pretty sure that was Celia Weston.
Sweet Bird of Youth was my introduction to her and I've been fond of her ever since. There's a lot of her filmography that I need to see, but her presence in films is always welcomed. R.I.P.
She’s fab in Sweet Bird, Petulia and The Rain People even if the film I saw her for the first time was Endless Love, where she played Brooke Shield’s mother. Sorry that I’ve never watched Dutchman and Dark
I absolutely adored her - and would argue her finest hour on the screen probably came in INDICTMENT: THE MCMARTIN TRIAL, which is well worth a watch on HBO Go.
Always a welcome presence wherever she showed up, a real journeywoman performer. I just caught a glimpse of her in The Group the other night on TCM.
Caring more for her craft than stardom she managed to have a long distinguished career with all the ups and downs that go with that sort of longevity.
Of all the many fine performances I've seen from her probably the most impactful was in The Rain People. The film was probably too small and Coppola not enough of a name at the time for her work to gather sufficient traction to be in the Best Actress nomination conversation but it's definitely worthy, moreso than several that did get in.
I haven't seen either of her Oscar-nominated performances but she is very memorable in As Good As It Gets and the line eurocheese quotes is a lovely moment! (and so true!!)
I've always loved her as Phyllis Van De Kamp on "Desperate Housewives". Her chemistry with Marcia Cross was outstanding. Well deserved Emmy nomination back in 2006.
She was perhaps the best part of The Group, proving she could quietly hold the spotlight in the midst of BIG acting around her.
I was watching "The Group" (1966) on TCM. The film has a real great cast of young actors but she gives the most memorable performance
Dutchman full movie is available on YouTube
She was a true artist. She deserved a nomination for As Good As It Gets. She has the best line in the movie:
HELEN HUNT (shouting): I just want a normal boyfriend.
SHIRLEY KNIGHT: Everybody wants that, dear. It doesn't exist.
Be at peace.
HELEN HUNT (shouting): Really mom, what is you want? What!
SHIRLEY KNIGHT: I want us to go out.
HELEN HUNT: OK
That was her Oscar clip
She's very good in Sweet Bird of Youth. However, I love her where I first saw her: as Mrs. Van De Kamp. She did so much with just a few moves of her face. Utterly hilarious, yet grounded, and probably one of Marcia Cross' best screen partners.
What does Shirley Knight's Tony say? It says, "I Beat Meryl."
I would like to recommend 'Playing For Time' for her performance and those of her outstanding cast mates.
Can someone copy paste the Los Angeles Times tribute for the non US-readers?
While I'm not particularly a fan of either of her oscar nominations just about everything else I've seen her in she's wonderful.
I so desperatly need to see Dutchman and will probably now with her loss. The best performance I've seen her give was in Rain People.
P.S. Always will have a soft spot in my heart for being a great addition to DH like many of the great pre-milenium actresses (i.e. Dixie Carter, Dana Delaney, Kathryn Joosten)
Oh this saddened me so much to hear the news. Despite all her accolades I think she was underappreciated and was hoping one last good part would come her way.
Loved her performances, especially that of a discomfited divorcee in the otherwise empty-headed "Petulia": fresh, sensitive, skilled playing, with believable flickers of expression, and wonderful shades of regret, defeat, and anger sliding into one another in her memorable first scene with the also-wonderful-as-usual George C. Scott--and beautiful on top of all of that.
Always a memorable presence. R.I.P.
I do remember her performance in The McMartin Trial. May she RIP.
When your website or blog first appears, it's interesting. That is until you realize no one but you and you.
RIP Shirley, you were very appreciated.
Her work in Sweet Bird of Youth has simply gotten better with each viewing. Page, Newman, Begley, Torn, and Sherwood are all perfectly monstrous (Dunnock would play the only other sympathetic character...but wow...what a cast) but Knight is so tragic and convincingly
sad that she might have been my choice for Supporting Actress if it weren't for Angela Lansbury's unforgettable Mommy from hell (both ROBBED by what I consider one of the worst cases of early category fraud - if ever there were 2 co-leads, it would have been Bancroft and Duke..).
Tom G
+1 Here... It was the same for me, I loved her very much, and always thought that she deserved more and better parts, even if in her career she won well deserved honors (winning the Tony the only time that Streep was nominated!) She was so good in "Indictment: The McMartin Trial" and very well in "As Good as It Gets", so I was waiting for something even better in the future... Because her roles in the 60's were amazing! I really loved her in "Sweet Bird of Youth", and in "The Rain People" she was devastating! I was really sad when I hear the news of her death, and even more when I read in the Facebook of her daughter, the actress Kaitlin Hopkins, how she tried to do the best to save her mother during the last weeks since the Easter weekend... My heart was even more broken after that. RIP sweet and wonderful Shirley!