Katharine Juliet Ross originally gained notoriety for her costarring role with Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year and an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting part for the part.
With a combined revenue of $104.9 million in the US and Canada, the movie was a major hit and the highest-grossing movie of 1967. The conclusion of The Graduate is still unclear because it depicts Hoffman’s character Benjamin saving Ross’s character Elaine from her wedding. Then, we see the two sitting on a city bus, their faces showing unexpected expressions.
“In every scene, you are instructed to continue until the director says, ‘Cut.'” Well, it took Mike a long time to say it. The camera continued to roll even after we ran out of dialogue. What am I thinking? Regarding the part that made Elaine famous, Ross remarked, “I think Elaine got off at the next stop.”
[Dustin Hoffman] was a theatrical performer from New York. He was so pale that he appeared to have just rolled out from under a rock. All he wanted was to return to his off-Broadway work. “Oh my God — this guy is dressed all in black, and he is white as a sheet,” Ross recounted in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, despite the fact that we eventually came to know and appreciate one another.
As you are aware, Gene Hackman, Dustin’s former roommate, was chosen to play my father. He bowed out, although I’m not sure what the exact situation was.
In 1962, Ross made her acting career debut in the television series Sam Benedict and the motion picture Shenandoah, costarring James Stewart.
Although Ross starred in several films in the beginning of her lucrative and prosperous career, such as Fools, Hellfighters, The Final Countdown, A Climate for Killing, and many more, being an actress in the 1960s wasn’t an easy task.
“I recall taking a screen test for The Young Lovers, the only movie directed by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. They brought in Chad Everett to do the screen test with me since Peter Fonda, who was supposed to star, was unavailable. He was giving the screen test his all without realizing the role had been cast. I couldn’t bring myself to be honest with him. To get my hair the way Sam wanted it, I had a number of hair salon appointments. All of my hair had been chopped off by the time they were done. And they ended up hiring someone else,” she told Variety at one point.She went on, “I’ll tell you what was great about it.” The little $1 million budget movies were viewed as the way to go at the time, when the old studio system was nearing the end of its life and they were only beginning to experiment with new strategies. And it did prove to be the beginning of a fantastic new age that eventually gave rise to the independent film movement.
She received another important job in 1969. She starred in one of the most famous scenes in the now-famous movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where she balanced on the handlebars of a bicycle that actor Paul Newman was pedaling.
Ross has been happily married to actor Sam Elliott for the past forty-odd years. She was married four times before marrying him, and she finally found genuine love with Elliot.
Although he was an extra in the movie and lacked the confidence to approach her, the two first collaborated on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. One of the most exquisite romances Hollywood has ever witnessed began when he fell in love with her.
I worked on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with my wife, Katharine Ross, but I was afraid to approach her at the time. The starring lady was she. In 2015, Elliott told AARP The Magazine, “I was a glorified extra in a bar scene, a shadow on the wall.”
However, it was a fantastic experience because I was able to get in and see them produce the movie since I was an extra on the program and a contract player (with Fox). When Katharine and the others were in Los Angeles, I used to spend a lot of time in a dim corner watching them work,” he said to The Oklahoman.
Ten years or so later, they collaborated once more, this time on the Gothic horror film The Legacy.
After having a daughter named Cleo Rose Elliott, they went on to co-star in other movies, including as Conagher, Houston: The Legend of Texas, and Travis McGee.Ross played Elliott’s ex-wife in the 2017 film The Hero, in which Elliott played an elderly Western movie star.
In 2016, Elliott told the Los Angeles Times, “I think we just like making movies and having that creative experience together is the best.”
It’s only enjoyable. Going home with someone you’re working with is a completely different energy than going home with someone you’re not working with. It’s an entirely good experience.
Elliot famously remarked, “We have a common sensibility, but we also work at being together,” in reference to the key to a long and successful marriage. You don’t ignore the s–t; you work past it. That’s how partnerships endure.
