Illeana Douglas

At 58 years old, Illeana Douglas has this physical status:

Illeana Hesselberg (born July 25, 1965), also known as Illeana Douglas, is an American actress, director, screenwriter, and producer.

Douglas has had a long career as a character actor with a special interest in comedies.

Notable performances include appearances in a 2001 episode of Six Feet Under, for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award from the Online Film & Television Association as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series and the Best Actress in a Drama Series Award, and her role in the TV series Action opposite Jay Mohr, for which she received a Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy.

She can now be seen on Turner Classic Movies, where she hosts specials focusing on unheralded women filmmakers from film history.

Early life

Douglas was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, and the niece of Joan Douglas (née Georgescu), a school teacher, and Gregory Hesselberg, a painter. Douglas' father, Melvyn Douglas, and his partner, artist Rosalind Hightower, were among Douglas' fathers. Douglas had two older brothers, the late Stefan Hesselberg, a scientist in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who also trained racehorses in Verona, Italy, and Erik Hesselberg, a journalist.

Douglas grew up in Connecticut, in the Old Saybrook neighborhood, and has since lived in several other towns in Massachusetts, Connecticut, where her father grew up, Connecticut, where her mother grew up, and New York, where her extended family lived. During her youth, she spent time bouncing back and forth between relatives during the summer. Douglas said that her parents were heavily influenced by 1970s hippie music, especially by the film Easy Rider. They had a loose parenting style and did not want her to go to college. In her family, comedy albums were all the rage. They will perform dramatic interpretations and performances.

Douglas's mother's side is Roman Catholic—Italian and Romanian from Astoria, Queens. Her maternal grandmother worked at a Gertz department store in Astoria; her maternal grandfather was a welder. Douglas said that her maternal grandmother, a former Rockette, wanted to be a performer. She instilled in Douglas a love for the movies, which they used to watch together as children.

As an infant, she would visit her paternal grandfather, Melvyn Douglas, in Manhattan's Upper West Side as well as his home in Los Angeles's Hollywood Hills neighborhood. Douglas said that during her summers with her grandfather, he introduced her to her interests, including theatre, elocution, reading, art, and history.

Douglas has stated that her grandfather's appearance in Being There was influential on her own career. Douglas' grandfather and Peter Sellers both served in WWII and met in Burma in the 1940s. The two guys reconnected in London in the 1960s and talked about their time together in the war. Douglas visited the theater during high school when they were shooting in Asheville, North Carolina, and met Sellers, whose work she adored greatly. It was the first time she had been on camera.

Douglas explores the differences between her working-class Italian roots and the glamorous Hollywood world of her paternal cousins. In a salon-like setting, famous people such as Myrna Loy, Gore Vidal, Gloria Steinem, politicians, journalists, and others were often present, including Myrna Loy, Gore Vidal, Gore Vidal, Gloria Steinem, politicians, journalists, and others were often present. Douglas said it took her a long time to reconcile the various lifestyles she was exposed to in her youth. She identifies more with the Italian family of her relatives, and has claimed that she learned more of their "rhythms and ways" as a result of the amount of time she spent with them in Queens.

Personal life

Douglas was in a relationship with director Martin Scorsese from 1989 to 1997.

She married writer and writer Jonathan Axelrod, the stepson of producer George Axelrod, on May 16, 1998; the pair divorced in 2001. Douglas said that the time after her divorce was difficult both physically and financially, and that she moved from Los Angeles to the New York area, where she took classes at her old school, the Neighborhood Playhouse, and worked in theater. She also started writing and directing.

Douglas is a vegetarian. Princess Ileana of Romania was named after her.

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Career

Douglas moved to New York City after graduating from high school. Douglas wanted to be in show business from her childhood. She lived with relatives in a variety of temporary homes. Douglas was a student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she was a contemporary of Elias Koteas and Lou Mustillo. Mustillo and Douglas were not allowed to return to school after their first year.

Douglas went to work for Steve Rubell at the Morgans Hotel when she was 18 years old. Douglas decided to reinvent herself and began attending Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where she met with acting instructor Richard Pinter. One of the troupe members suggested trying stand-up comedy while working in a sketch comedy company called Manhattan Punchline. Douglas spent a short time at Stand Up New York, and found the writing and acting straightforward, but finding the show to be difficult. She did not like the raw comedy style when it was in vogue, and she did not like the life of a stand-up comedian.

Douglas began working with Peggy Siegal, a well-known publicist. She attempted to give her head shot to Martin Scorsese's casting director, but was unsuccessful. Scorsese was filming Last Temptation of Christ in a building across the hall from Siegal's offices at that time. The editors wanted a sound effect to alert Mary Magdalene, screaming, and asked her to assist. Douglas met Scorsese, his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, as well as filmmaker Michael Powell, as well as filmmaker Michael Powell, and many ADR of crowd sounds. The group developed a long-term passion for old films. Scorsese and Douglas developed a long-term friendship.

She made her first film appearance soon after: a small part of Scorsese's New York Stories segment. Douglas says Lorraine Bracco took Douglas under her wing during the assassination of Scorsese's Goodfellas, aiding her in finding an agent. Douglas was then Scorsese's maidendom.

Douglas appeared in Cape Fear (1991), one of four Scorsese films in which she has appeared. She appeared in numerous film roles, including in Household Saints, Jungle Fever, and Quiz Show, which culminated in Cape Fear. "It was definitely depressing," she said.

Douglas starred in Grief, a low-budget film that was accepted into Sundance, which culminated in her meeting director Allison Anders.

Douglas and Anders wanted to collaborate on a film and started working on Anne Sexton's biography, but it didn't come to fruition. Douglas suggested a film about the Brill Building, where she had worked, as they were both interested in music. Denise Waverly, a singer-songwriter, appeared in Anders' 1996 film Grace of My Heart, for her first starring role.

Douglas played a supporting role in 1995's To Die For, in which director Gus Van Sant taught her about the technical aspects of filmmaking, such as camera blocking, film cameras, and film modulation. It was also a movie where she realized that the Meisner method she learned at the Neighborhood Playhouse started to click for her.

She appeared in Ghost World for the second time in 2001.

Douglas appeared in Unleashed, a British independent film.

Douglas appeared on television in a memorable role as one of Garry Shandling's love affairs near the end of the series, The Larry Sanders Show, in 1998. In 1999, she appeared in the film Action opposite Jay Mohr. Mohr was a regular client who bought her as a prostitute. She started out as a television executive who had Mohr as a regular customer.

She appeared on Seinfeld, Frasier, and The Drew Carey Show as a public defender on several episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2002 and 2003. She appeared in two episodes of HBO's Six Feet Under, both of whom earned Emmy nominations for Guest Actress in a Drama. In the Season 7 finale of Entourage, she appeared as Mrs. Ari's sister Marci.

In 2006, she appeared in the Lifetime television film Not Like Everybody Else and played herself against Jeff Goldblum in Pittsburgh. Douglas was introduced to the cast of Ugly Betty in 2007, playing Sheila, an editor for MODE magazine.

Douglas spent time in Sweden shooting a television show titled Welcome to Sweden, which was also starring Greg Poehler and Lena Olin. The series, which aired on Swedish TV as well as on NBC, was a Swedish-American co-production.

Douglas has written and produced a comedy short The Perfect Woman (1993), (a satire on what men really want from women), the documentary Everybody Just Stay Calm (1994), and the satire Boy Crazy, Girl Crazier (1995). She has been involved in a number of projects, including Illeanarama, a series of her short films for the Sundance Channel.

Douglas appeared in a web series called Easy to Assemble, where she portrays herself as an actor-in-recovery-acting who goes to work at IKEA from 2008 to 2012. Douglas said she had a great deal of autonomy from promoting IKEA, whose only request was that the show be suitable for children and families. It was cancelled after four seasons.

Douglas developed and supervised female filmmakers in creating The Skinny, a Jill Soloway web-series.

Douglas appeared on a Turner Classic Movies series called Friday Night Spotlight, a prime-time program that featured a month-long festival of movies hosted by special guests. The season on which she worked focused on the theme "Second Looks." Douglas said that curating, writing, and working on this series enabled her to use her movie expertise while still making it funny, entertaining, and informative.

Douglas produced "Trailblazing Women," a TCM cable channel campaign to highlight women's contributions to the art of cinema in 2015. Douglas became involved in the initiative after learning that the American Film Institute's list of 100 best American films didn't include any movies directed by women. The series was also in response to ongoing debates about Hollywood's gender inequalities. The series will feature female pioneers like Dorothy Arzner, Alice Guy-Blaché, Agnès Varda, Lina Wertmüller, as well as interviews with Allison Anders, Amy Heckerling, Julie Dash, and others. The event will be held in New York City from the 1920s to the present, with the first year focusing on female directors from the 1920s to the present. Each night is themed, with programming topics ranging from foreign films to African-American filmmakers.

I Blame Dennis Hopper, Douglas' memoir, was published in Flatiron Books in 2015. Douglas writes about her childhood through her love for movies and her first encounter with Hollywood through her paternal grandfather Melvyn Douglas. She began a podcast with the same name only a few months after the book was published.

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