43 Facts About Sissy Spacek

1.

Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek is an American actress and singer.

2.

Sissy Spacek is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for four British Academy Film Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award.

3.

Sissy Spacek began her professional acting career in the early 1970s, making her debut as an extra in Andy Warhol's Women in Revolt.

4.

Sissy Spacek rose to international prominence with her portrayal of Carrie White in Brian De Palma's horror film Carrie, for which she received her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

5.

Sissy Spacek received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the television films The Good Old Boys and Last Call, and for her guest role on the HBO drama series Big Love.

6.

Sissy Spacek portrayed matriarch Sally Rayburn on the Netflix drama thriller series Bloodline, Ruth Deaver on the Hulu psychological horror series Castle Rock, and Ellen Bergman on the Amazon Prime Video psychological thriller series Homecoming.

7.

Sissy Spacek has ventured into music, and recorded vocals for the soundtrack album of Coal Miner's Daughter, which peaked at number two on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart and garnered her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

8.

Sissy Spacek released a studio album, Hangin' Up My Heart, which was critically well-received and peaked at number 17 on Billboard Top Country Albums chart.

9.

Mary Elizabeth Sissy Spacek was born on December 25,1949, in Tyler, Texas, the daughter of Virginia Frances and Edwin Arnold Sissy Spacek Sr.

10.

Sissy Spacek's father was of three quarters Czech and one quarter Sudeten-German ancestry; her paternal grandparents were Mary and Arnold A Spacek.

11.

At age six, Sissy Spacek performed on stage for the first time in a local talent show.

12.

Sissy Spacek switched her focus to acting, enrolling at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

13.

Sissy Spacek worked as a photographic model and as an extra at Andy Warhol's Factory.

14.

Sissy Spacek appeared in a non-credited role in his film Trash.

15.

Sissy Spacek received international attention for her breakthrough role in Terrence Malick's Badlands ; she played Holly, the film's narrator and 15-year-old girlfriend of serial killer Kit.

16.

Sissy Spacek has described Badlands as the "most incredible" experience of her career.

17.

Sissy Spacek worked as the set dresser for Brian De Palma's film Phantom of the Paradise.

18.

Sissy Spacek had to work hard to persuade de Palma to cast her in the role.

19.

Sissy Spacek's performance was widely praised and led to an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination.

20.

Sissy Spacek has this mysterious way of slipping into a part, letting it take over her.

21.

Sissy Spacek began the 1980s with an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Coal Miner's Daughter, in which she played country music star Loretta Lynn, who selected her for the role.

22.

Sissy Spacek's face is no more of an actor's instrument than it ever was, but given a human being to play, given a director concerned with acting, she makes that woman exist.

23.

Sissy Spacek was so adamant about getting the role that she pored through over 4,000 pages of research to prepare for her character.

24.

Sissy Spacek was so distraught at the news that she shattered a glass of wine in her hand.

25.

Sissy Spacek said that Spacek breaking the glass clinched the deal, and they believed she ultimately would best suit the part.

26.

Sissy Spacek starred with Jack Lemmon in Constantin Costa-Gavras's 1982 political thriller Missing.

27.

Sissy Spacek appeared with Mel Gibson in the rural drama The River and she starred alongside Diane Keaton and Jessica Lange in the grimly humorous comedy film Crimes Of The Heart.

28.

Sissy Spacek showed a lighter side by voicing the brain in the Steve Martin comedy The Man with Two Brains.

29.

Sissy Spacek had a supporting role as the wife of Jim Garrison in Oliver Stone's JFK and made a number of comedies, TV movies, and the occasional film.

30.

Sissy Spacek played Verena Talbo in the ensemble piece The Grass Harp, which reunited her with both Lemmon and Piper Laurie.

31.

Sissy Spacek lent a supporting performance as the waitress Margie Fogg in Paul Schrader's father-son psychodrama Affliction.

32.

Sissy Spacek played Rose Straight in David Lynch's The Straight Story and the mother of Brendan Fraser's character in Blast from the Past.

33.

Sissy Spacek began the 2000s with critical acclaim for her performance as Ruth Fowler, a grieving mother consumed by revenge, in Todd Field's In the Bedroom, which was released in 2001.

34.

Sissy Spacek played unfaithful wife Ruth in Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives and a woman suffering from Alzheimer's in the television movie Pictures of Hollis Woods.

35.

Sissy Spacek had a supporting part in the 2008 Christmas comedy Four Christmases and a lead role in the independent drama Lake City.

36.

Sissy Spacek appeared in the HBO drama series Big Love for a multi-episode arc as a powerful Washington, DC, lobbyist.

37.

Sissy Spacek received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.

38.

Sissy Spacek was featured in Tate Taylor's The Help, whose cast received the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

39.

Sissy Spacek published a memoir, My Extraordinary Ordinary Life, with co-author Maryanne Vollers, in 2012.

40.

Sissy Spacek became the first actor to appear in a film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in each of the four most recent decades.

41.

Sissy Spacek had starring roles in a variety of television series in the late 2010s.

42.

Sissy Spacek starred as the matriarch Sally Rayburn in the Netflix series Bloodline, which aired from 2015 to 2017; as Ruth Deaver on the Hulu series Castle Rock, which intertwines characters and themes from Stephen King's fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine; and as Ellen Bergman, the mother of Julia Roberts's character, in the Amazon Prime Video series Homecoming.

43.

Sissy Spacek married production designer and art director Jack Fisk in 1974, after they met on the set of Badlands.