ELLEN BARKIN Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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ELLEN BARKIN

Name: Ellen Rona Barkin                                                             
Born: 16 April 1954 Bronx, New York, USA                                           
                                                                                   
Ellen Rona Barkin (born April 16, 1954) is an Emmy Award-winning and Golden         
Globe Award-nominated American actress.                                             
                                                                                   
Barkin was born in the Bronx, New York, to a chemical salesman and a hospital       
administrator at Jamaica Hospital, and raised in a Jewish home.                     
                                                                                   
Barkin received her high school diploma at Manhattan's High School of Performing   
Arts. She then attended Hunter College and double majored in history and drama.     
At one point, Barkin wanted to teach ancient history. She continued her acting     
education at New York's Actor's Studio. According to Time, she studied acting       
for seven years before landing her first audition.                                 
                                                                                   
Barkin became a notable actress in the 1980s. Her break out role was in Barry       
Levinson's Diner (1982), for which she received favorable reviews.                 
                                                                                   
Barkin would later appear in several successful films, including the thrillers     
Sea of Love, opposite Al Pacino (1989), and The Big Easy (1987), opposite Dennis   
Quaid.                                                                             
                                                                                   
Barkin also appeared in off-Broadway plays. New York Times critic Frank Rich       
summarized her performance in the play, Eden Court, saying: "If it were really     
possible to give the kiss of life to a corpse, the actress Ellen Barkin would be   
the one to do it. In Eden Court, the moribund play that has brought her to the     
Promenade Theater, Miss Barkin is tantalizingly alive from her bouncing blond       
ponytail to the long legs that gyrate wildly and involuntarily every time an       
Elvis Presley record plays on stage."                                               
                                                                                   
Barkin has also done work in made-for-television films like Before Women Had       
Wings (1987) and The White River Kid (1999). Currently, she voices the start of     
each Theme Time Radio Hour with host Bob Dylan on XM's "Deep Tracks."               
                                                                                   
In 2005, Barkin set up a film production company with her brother, George, along   
with her ex-husband and billionaire investor, Ronald Perelman. She is currently     
suing Perelman for $3.4 million in investment funds he reportedly promised to       
invest, but has yet to deliver.