April 16: Happy Birthday Ellen Barkin

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https://lebeauleblog.com/2023/04/16/...-ellen-barkin/

Today is Ellen Barkin’s 69th birthday. Barkin was born and grew up in New York City. She studied at Hunter College and at the Actors Studio. In 1979 she made her off-Broadway debut in Stephen Poliakoff’s Shout Across the River.

In the past decade, Barkin has been known for starring as Janine “Smurf” Cody on TNT’s Animal Kingdom. She headlined the crime drama, based on an Australian film of the same title, for its first four seasons.



Barkin’s breakthrough film performance came in 1982, as Beth Schreiber in Barry Levinson’s Diner. For most of the next two decades, she starred in a wide range of films, including Tender Mercies (as Robert Duvall’s daughter), The Big Easy, Sea of Love, Into the West, Bad Company, Mad Dog Time, Drop Dead Gorgeous (as Kirsten Dunst’s mother) and Crime and Punishment in Suburbia. She was a Golden Globe nominee for the 1991 comedy Switch.

In the current century, Barkin has transitioned to being more of a supporting player, in films such as Ocean’s Thirteen, Brooklyn’s Finest, Operation: Endgame, Hands of Stone, and Breaking News in Yuba County. She starred in Another Happy Day, the directing debut of Sam Levinson (son of Barry).

During the 1980s, Barkin was also active in off-Broadway productions. She appeared in plays such as Killings on the Last Line, Extremities, and Eden Court. In 2011, she made her Broadway debut in Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, and won a Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play.

In the eighties and nineties, Barkin also made a number of TV movies. She won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress for the 1997 TV movie Before Women Had Wings. In addition to Animal Kingdom, in the past decade she has been a regular on the NBC comedy series The New Normal and the short-lived Showtime series Happyish.

Barkin is part of the cast of the upcoming Netflix crime comedy feature The Out-Laws.