Background:

"I've wanted an Oscar since I was seven years old. It is the basis of all my secret fantasies." Ellen Burstyn.

Irish-American actress Ellen Burstyn won Best Actress Oscar for portraying the title role of a newly widowed woman who hopes to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a singer, in Martin Scorsese’s delightfully bittersweet drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). Burstyn, who received her first Oscar nomination while acting in The Last Picture Show (1971), continued to collect more Oscar nominations for starring in The Exorcist (1973), Same Time, Next Year (1978; Burstyn also won a Tony when she starred in its Broadway play version in 1975), Resurrection (1980), and Requiem for a Dream ( ..[Full version]