Katharine Ross sounds like someone that was adamant in telling people that she wasn’t a movie star even as she continued to show up in various movies and productions through the course of her career. It also sounds as though she was dropped and then picked up and then pushed to the back a couple of times in the earliest years of her career, a trial of sorts that saw her continuing to audition and seek out roles with enough success to stay the course until her career started to experience an upswing in the late 60s and into the early 70s. At that point, she became a star that everyone apparently wanted to sign, but she beholden to Universal at the time. While it does sound as though her fame was on the rise during this time a lot of folks already know that fame can come and go in the time it takes to read a movie title and Ross would eventually start picking and choosing which movies she wanted to star in as it became apparent that she might be leaning towards retirement. As the years kept rolling along she kept acting though and as of now she’s still listed as active and has even been in front of the camera with her current husband, Sam Elliott.
It’s possible to keep pulling up names from the past since there are many upon many individuals that have helped to build the movie industry into what it is today and many of them that have started to slip from memory as people continue to look forward and not give enough attention to those that came before. Unfortunately, this is pretty common since people are continually being told to move forward, don’t look back, and don’t bother staying in place. The thing about that is that learning about the past isn’t going backward, it’s taking what’s been done and learning from it by learning more about those that helped pave the way while they were on top, or while they were seeking to make their career at least. It feels accurate enough to say that a lot of people don’t remember Ross for a few reasons, either because they weren’t born yet when her career was rising, or they don’t take the time to enjoy older movies and TV shows that helped to create room and opportunity for those that are so prominent today. Like many others that came before the stars of the current era, Ross is one of many that did her part even if she was adamant at one time about not being a movie star.
Ross has actually been married five times throughout the course of her career, something that tabloids tend to pick up on quite readily, but her current marriage to Sam Elliott has lasted since 1984, so it could be that she was seeking the right man and made a few slips in judgment. It does happen after all and despite many no doubt thinking that people who get married and get divorced as often as people switch houses or automobiles sometimes, it’s not something that’s reflected poorly on her character over the years. If it has been mentioned then it was likely spoken of by columnists and gossip rags that have long since faded into obscurity. It’s hard to figure out why Hollywood marriages don’t last as long sometimes, but there are likely several reasons that can be given and plenty of opinions that are best kept within polite company if that’s possible. But one thing that’s true among the many is that her career has moved forward at a staggered pace at times and steadily as ever at others. It feels as though she’s been able to dictate just how things will go after a while and has been enjoying the past few decades as she’s continued to live out her life as she sees fit. So far it would appear that everything has gone pretty much the way she wants it to since she and her husband have appeared together on screen a couple of times and she’s even taken up writing children’s stories, so things sound as though they’ve turned out fairly well.
One can’t say that Katharine did nothing with her career upon coming up since she’s been an award-winning actress, as she’s won a couple of Golden Globes and was nominated for an Academy Award thanks to her role in The Graduate. There are a lot of people that won’t recognize her due to being too young when her career was starting to take off, and there are some that might not have thought much of her in the first place. But the truth of it is that she’s been a very talented actress for some time, and she’s worth looking up if you get the chance.
