Tell Me A Riddle

Lee Grant

Born in New York, she studied drama at HB Studio in Greenwich Village. She made her stage debut at age 4 at the Metropolitan Opera, playing the abducted princess in L’Orocolo. After graduating from high school, she won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse of the Theatre where she studied acting with Sanford Meisner. When she was a teenager, Grant established herself as a formidable Broadway talent when she won The Critics’ Circle Award for her potrayal of the shoplifter in Detective Story (1951). She re-prised the role in the film version, a performance that garnered her the Cannes Film Festival Citation for Best Actress as well as her first Academy Award Nomination. Immediately following her screen debut, she became a victim of the Mc Carthy blacklists. In 1966, she had resumed her acting career in TV series for wich she won an Emmy Award and other prizes. Since 1980, she has been concentrating on her directorial efforts which began as part of the Women’s Project at The American Film Institute; her adaptation of Strindberg’s was selected as one of the 10 best films ever produced for AFI. In 1987, she received an Academy Award for the HBO documentary Down and Out in America. She received the Directors Guild Award.