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Sissy Spacek extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Sissy Spacek
Spacek at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, for the premiere of Get Low.
Born	Mary Elizabeth Spacek December 25, 1949 (1949-12-25) (age 60) Quitman, Texas, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1970–present
Spouse(s)	Jack Fisk (1974–present)

Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek (born December 25, 1949) is an American actress and singer. Her screen debut was in the 1972 film Prime Cut co-starring Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman.

In the 1970s, she began starring in critically-acclaimed films directed by Terrence Malick, Brian de Palma and Robert Altman. Her performance as the title character in de Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie made her famous. She is one of the very few actresses ever nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in a horror film (Carrie).

In 1980, she won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as country star Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter. She has been nominated a total of 6 times. Spacek is known mainly as a dramatic actress, but has also made comedies. The films Spacek has starred in have earned over $700 million world wide.¹

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 1970s 2.2 1980s 2.3 1990s 2.4 2000s 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 5 Discography 5.1 Albums 5.2 Singles 6 References 7 External links

Early life

Spacek was born in Quitman, Texas, the daughter of Virginia Frances (née Spilman) and Edwin Arnold Spacek, Sr., a county agricultural agent.² Her paternal grandparents, Mary Červenka and Arnold A. Špaček (who served as Mayor of Granger, Texas in Williamson County), were of Moravian/Czech/Bohemian descent.³ Spacek's mother was from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Spacek was given the nickname Sissy by her older brothers. She was greatly affected by the death of her eighteen-year old brother, Robbie, in 1967. Spacek moved to New York City hoping to become a singer. There she lived with her cousin, the actor Rip Torn, and his wife, the actress Geraldine Page.

Career

Spacek started out as a singer, recording one single ("John, You've Gone Too Far This Time"), about John Lennon,⁴ an expression of her shock over the Two Virgins cover under the name 'Rainbo'. With the help of her cousin, actor Rip Torn, she was able to enroll in Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and then the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York City.

1970s

Her first credited role was in the 1970 cult classic Prime Cut, in which she played Poppy, a young girl sold into sexual slavery. This role led to TV work which included a small role in The Waltons, where she uttered the well known line "When are you going to stop being John Boy and start being John Man?". But her landmark role of this period and the role that brought her to international attention, came in 1973: Holly in Terrence Malick's Badlands. As Holly, the 15-year old girlfriend of mass-murderer Kit (played by Martin Sheen). Spacek has described Badlands as the "most incredible" experience of her career.⁵ It was on the set of Badlands that Spacek met art director Jack Fisk, whom she would soon marry.

Spacek's iconic and career-defining role came in 1976 with Brian De Palma's Carrie, in which she played Carietta "Carrie" White, a shy high school senior and troubled teenager with telekinetic powers. Spacek had to work hard to persuade director de Palma to engage her for the role, set as he was on an alternative actress, whose identity remains to this day shrouded in mystery. Rubbing Vaseline into her hair, and donning an old sailor-dress her mother had made for her as a child, Spacek turned up to the audition with the odds stacked against her, but blew her competition out of the water.⁶ She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in the film. (Veteran actress Piper Laurie, who played Carrie's religiously maniacal mother Margaret White, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.)

After Carrie Spacek played the small role of topless house-keeper Linda Murray in Alan Rudolph's ensemble piece Welcome to LA (1976), but cemented her reputation in independent cinema in Robert Altman's 1977 classic 3 Women. As Pinky Rose, Millie Lammoreaux. Altman himself was deeply impressed by her performance, stating: 'She's remarkable, one of the top actresses I've ever worked with. Her resources are like a deep well.' Meanwhile, de Palma now enthused: 'Sissy's a phantom. She has this mysterious way of slipping into a part, letting it take over her. She's got a wider range than any young actress I know.'⁷ Spacek also helped to finance then-brother-in-law David Lynch's directorial debut, Eraserhead (1976), and is thanked in the credits of the film.

In 1979's Heart Beat, Spacek played the Carolyn Cassady, slipping (under the influence of John Heard's Jack Kerouac and Nick Nolte's Neal Cassady) into a frustrating combination of drudgery and debauchery.

1980s

Spacek began the decade with an Oscar in 1980 for Coal Miner's Daughter, in which she played country music star Loretta Lynn. Film critic Roger Ebert credited the success that was Coal Miner's Daughter, "to the performance by Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn. With the same sort of magical chemistry she's shown before, when she played the high school kid in Carrie, Spacek at twenty-nine has the ability to appear to be almost any age onscreen. Here she ages from about fourteen to somewhere in her thirties, always looks the age, and never seems to be wearing makeup."⁸

Spacek was also nominated for a Grammy Award for her singing on that film's soundtrack album. She followed this with her own country album, Hangin' Up My Heart in 1983; the album spawned one hit single, "Lonely But Only For You," a song written by K.T. Oslin which reached #15 on the Billboard Country chart.

The 1980s were a solid decade for Spacek. She consolidated her position as one of Hollywood's leading actresses. She starred alongside Jack Lemmon in Costa-Gavras's political thriller Missing (1982), Mel Gibson in the rural drama The River (1984), and Diane Keaton and Jessica Lange in 1986's Crimes of the Heart. She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for all of these roles. Other notable performances of the decade included poignant star turns in husband Jack Fisk's directorial debut Raggedy Man (1981), and opposite Anne Bancroft in the suicide drama 'Night Mother (1986). She also showed her lighter side by agreeing to play the voice of the brain in the Steve Martin comedy The Man with Two Brains (1983). By the end of 1986 Spacek retired to her farm in Virginia to raise her children and would not appear in another film until 1990.⁹

1990s

The 1990s saw Spacek slowly come back to Hollywood, after her self-imposed hiatus. She had a supporting role as Kevin Costner's wife in Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), she made a number of comedies, TV movies, and the occasional film. Most notable were her turn as the villainous Verena Talbo in 1995's ensemble piece The Grass Harp (which reunited her with both Piper Laurie and Jack Lemmon), supporting performance (opposite Nick Nolte again) as the waitress Margie Fogg in Paul Schrader's father-son psychodrama Affliction (1997), and as Rose Straight in David Lynch's The Straight Story (1999).

2000s

The last decade has seen Spacek excel in a number of film roles. In 2001, she was nominated again for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Todd Field's In the Bedroom. New York Times film critic Stephen Holden said of her work in the film:

"Ms. Spacek's performance is as devastating as it is unflashy. With the slight tightening of her neck muscles and a downward twitch of her mouth, she conveys her character's relentlessness, then balances it with enough sweetness to make Ruth seem entirely human. It is one of Ms. Spacek's greatest performances.¹⁰

Her portrayal of a grieving mother consumed by revenge, Ruth Fowler, won extraordinary praise and garnered the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics Awards for Best Actress.

Other notable performances of this decade include unfaithful wife Ruth in Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives (2005), and a recent turn as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's in the television movie Pictures of Hollis Woods (2007). In 2008, Spacek had a supporting part in the Christmas movie Four Christmases (2008) and a lead role in the independent drama, Lake City (2008).

Spacek joined the HBO drama Big Love for a multi-episode arc as a powerful Washington, D.C., lobbyist.¹¹

Personal life

Spacek married production designer Jack Fisk in 1974. Fisk directed her in the films Raggedy Man and Violets Are Blue and was Oscar-nominated for his production design in 2007's There Will Be Blood. They have two daughters, Schuyler Fisk and Madison Fisk. Schuyler has appeared in several film roles, and is now pursuing a career as a singer. Spacek and her family live on a horse ranch near Charlottesville, Virginia. She is also an ardent crusader for women's rights.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1970	Trash	Girl extra at bar	uncredited
1972	Prime Cut	Poppy
1973	The Girls of Huntington House	Sara	TV film
	Badlands	Holly	Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
1974	Ginger in the Morning	Ginger	TV film
	The Migrants	Wanda Trimpin
1975	Katherine	Katherine Alman	TV film (also known as The Radical)
1976	Carrie	Carrie White	National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
	Welcome to L.A.	Linda Murray
1977	3 Women	Pinky Rose	New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
1978	Verna: U.S.O. Girl	Verna Vane	TV film
1980	Coal Miner's Daughter	Loretta Lynn	Academy Award for Best Actress Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Actress National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
	Heart Beat	Carolyn Cassady
1981	Raggedy Man	Nita Longley	Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1982	Missing	Beth Horman	Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1983	The Man with Two Brains	Anne Uumellmahaye	voice (uncredited)
1984	The River	Mae Garvey	Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
	Terror in the Aisles		archival footage
1985	Marie	Marie Ragghianti
1986	Violets Are Blue	Augusta 'Gussie' Sawyer
	'night, Mother	Jessie Cates
	Crimes of the Heart	Rebeca 'Babe'/'Becky' Magrath Botrelle	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
1990	The Long Walk Home	Miriam Thompson
1991	Hard Promises	Christine Ann Coalter
	JFK	Liz Garrison
1992	A Private Matter	Sherri Finkbine	TV film
1994	A Place for Annie	Susan Lansing	TV film
	Trading Mom aka "The Mommy Market"	Mrs. Mommy Martin; Mama, Snappy French; Mom, the Nature-Hiker; Natasha, the Circus Performer
1995	The Good Old Boys	Spring Renfro	Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
	The Grass Harp	Verena Talbo
	Streets of Laredo	Lorena Parker	TV mini-series
1996	Beyond the Call	Pam O'Brien	TV film
	If These Walls Could Talk	Barbara Barrows (segment "1974")	TV film
1997	Affliction	Margie Fogg
1999	Blast from the Past	Helen Thomas Webber	Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
	The Straight Story	Rose 'Rosie' Straight	Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
2000	Songs in Ordinary Time	Marie Fermoyle	TV film
2001	In the Bedroom	Ruth Fowler	AFI Actress of the Year Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
	Midwives	Sibyl Danforth	Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2002	Last Call	Zelda Fitzgerald	Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
	Tuck Everlasting	Mae Tuck	Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
2004	A Home at the End of the World	Alice Glover
2005	Nine Lives	Ruth	Locarno International Film Festival Award for Best Actress Ensemble
	The Ring Two	Evelyn
	North Country	Alice Aimes
2006	An American Haunting	Lucy Bell
	Summer Running: The Race to Cure Breast Cancer	Mrs. Flora Good
2007	Gray Matters	Sydney
	Hot Rod	Marie Powell
	Pictures of Hollis Woods	Josie Cahill	Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
2008	Lake City	Maggie
	Four Christmases	Paula (Brad's Mom)
2009	Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People	Narrator	TV mini-series
	Get Low		For People

Unknow

Discography

Albums

Year	Album	US Country	Label
1983	Hangin' Up My Heart	17	Atlantic

Singles

Year	Single	Chart Positions			Album
		US Country	US	CAN Country
1980	"Coal Miner's Daughter"	24	—	7	Coal Miner's Daughter (Soundtrack)
	"Back in Baby's Arms"	—	—	71
1983	"Lonely But Only for You"	15	110	13	Hangin' Up My Heart
1984	"If I Can Just Get Through the Night"	57	—	41
	"If You Could Only See Me Now"	79	—	—

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sissy Spacek

External links

• Sissy Spacek at the Internet Movie Database
• Sissy Spacek at Yahoo! Movies

Awards for Sissy Spacek v • d • e Academy Award for Best Actress Sophia Loren (1961) · Anne Bancroft (1962) · Patricia Neal (1963) · Julie Andrews (1964) · Julie Christie (1965) · Elizabeth Taylor (1966) · Katharine Hepburn (1967) · Katharine Hepburn / Barbra Streisand (1968) · Maggie Smith (1969) · Glenda Jackson (1970) · Jane Fonda (1971)  · Liza Minnelli (1972) · Glenda Jackson (1973) · Ellen Burstyn (1974) · Louise Fletcher (1975) · Faye Dunaway (1976) · Diane Keaton (1977) · Jane Fonda (1978) · Sally Field (1979) · Sissy Spacek (1980) Complete list · (1928–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001-present) v • d • e Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Rosalind Russell (1961) · Rosalind Russell (1962) · Shirley MacLaine (1963) · Julie Andrews (1964) · Julie Andrews (1965) · Lynn Redgrave (1966) · Anne Bancroft (1967) · Barbra Streisand (1968) · Patty Duke (1969) · Carrie Snodgress (1970) · Twiggy (1971) · Liza Minnelli (1972) · Glenda Jackson (1973) · Raquel Welch (1974) · Ann-Margret (1975) · Barbra Streisand (1976) · Diane Keaton/Marsha Mason (1977) · Ellen Burstyn/Maggie Smith (1978) · Bette Midler (1979) · Sissy Spacek (1980) Complete List · (1950–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001–present) v • d • e Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Bernadette Peters (1981) · Julie Andrews (1982) · Julie Walters (1983) · Kathleen Turner (1984) · Kathleen Turner (1985) · Sissy Spacek (1986) · Cher (1987) · Melanie Griffith (1988) · Jessica Tandy (1989) · Julia Roberts (1990) · Bette Midler (1991) · Miranda Richardson (1992) · Angela Bassett (1993) · Jamie Lee Curtis (1994) · Nicole Kidman (1995) · Madonna (1996) · Helen Hunt (1997) · Gwyneth Paltrow (1998) · Janet McTeer (1999) · Renée Zellweger (2000) Complete List · (1950–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001–present) v • d • e Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama Sissy Spacek (2001) · Nicole Kidman (2002) · Charlize Theron (2003) · Hilary Swank (2004) · Felicity Huffman (2005) · Helen Mirren (2006) · Julie Christie (2007) · Kate Winslet (2008) · Sandra Bullock (2009) Complete List · (1943–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001–present)

Persondata
NAME	Spacek, Sissy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Spacek, Mary Elizabeth
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Actress, singer
DATE OF BIRTH	December 25, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH	Quitman, Texas, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH