Sally Kirkland [Shelly Nelson]

Sally Kirkland is a renowned veteran actress in film, TV and stage as well as a lifetime member of the Actor’s Studio. She is probably best known for her starring role in Anna, which, in 1988, garnered her the Best Actress Oscar Nomination, and won her the best actress Golden Globe, the Independent Spirit Award, the LA Film Critics Circle Award, Women in Film Award, and the Diversity Award. Kevin Thomas, Senior LA Times film critic, cited her performance in Anna as “One of the five best performances by a woman in the ‘80’s.”

She started her career in New York with Joseph Papp, in the NY Shakespeare Festival. She went on to study at the Actor’s Studio with Lee Strasberg in the same class with Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman. Acting for ten years on the New York stage, Ms. Kirkland became the first nude actress in American theatre, in 1968 in SWEET EROS, written by Terence McNally.

She co-starred with Robert Redford in THE STING, with Barbra Streisand in THE WAY WE WERE and with Gene Hackman and James Coburn in BITE THE BULLET. In 1982, she starred opposite Dennis Hopper in NEIL YOUNG: HUMAN HIGHWAY, directed by Dean Stockwell.

TV found her recurring as Professor Annie Sherman on the WB’s FELICITY, as Peter Rigg’s mother in Strong Medicine, and as Mrs. De La Vega on RESURRECTION BLVD.

In 2002, she associate produced and starred in MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS, which was the winner of “Best Screenplay” at the San Diego Film Festival. She starred with her best friend and director Valerie McCaffrey, opposite Mary Steenburgen in WISH YOU WERE DEAD.

Sally has been teaching acting on and off since the ‘70’s at the Lee Strasberg Institute as well as Yoga and Transformational Acting and Forgiveness workshops at the Peace Theological Seminaries. In addition to acting, Ms. Kirkland is an exhibited painter, an ordained minister and published poet.

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