Sally Kirkland, film and theater star, dies at 84

NEW YORK (AP) — Sally Kirkland, a former model who became a regular on stage, film and television, best known for sharing the screen with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in “The Sting” and her Oscar-nominated lead role in the 1987 film “Anna,” has died. She was 84 years old.

His representative, Michael Greene, said Kirkland died Tuesday morning at a Palm Springs hospice.

Friends started a GoFundMe account this fall for his medical care. They said he had broken four bones in his neck, right wrist and left hip. While recovering, he also developed infections that required hospitalization and rehabilitation.

Kirkland starred in such films as “The Way We Were” with Barbra Streisand, “Revenge” with Kevin Costner, “Cold Feet” with Keith Carradine and Tom Waits, Ron Howard’s “EDtv,” Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” “Heatwave” with Cicely Tyson, “High Stakes” with Kathy Bates, “Bruce Almighty” with Jim Carrey and the 1991 TV movie “The Haunted.” about a Family dealing with paranormal activity. He had a cameo in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.”

Her biggest role was in 1987’s “Anna,” as a fading Czech movie star rebuilding her life in America and mentoring a younger actress, Paulina Porizkova. Kirkland won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination alongside Cher for “Moonstruck,” Glenn Close for “Fatal Attraction,” Holly Hunter for “Broadcast News” and Meryl Streep for “Ironweed.”

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“Kirkland is one of those performers whose talent has been an open secret to her fellow actors but something of a mystery to the general public,” the Los Angeles critic wrote in her review. “There should be no confusion about his identity after this flaming comet performance.”

Kirkland’s small screen acting credits include stints on “Criminal Minds,” “Roseanne,” “Head Case” and he was a regular on the TV shows “Valley of the Dolls” and “Charlie’s Angels.”

Born in New York City, Kirkland’s mother was a fashion editor at Vogue and Life magazines, who encouraged her daughter to start modeling at age 5. Kirkland graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and studied with Philip Burton, Richard Burton’s mentor, and Lee Strasberg, the teacher at the Method acting school. One of her first revelations was her appearance in Andy Warhol’s “The 13 Most Beautiful Women” in 1964. She appeared nude as a kidnapped rape victim in Terrence McNally’s “Sweet Eros” off-Broadway.

Some of her earliest roles were Shakespearean, including the lovestruck Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp, and Miranda in an Off-Broadway production of “The Tempest.”

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“I don’t think any actor can really call themselves an actor unless they spend time with Shakespeare,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “It comes up, it always comes up in the play, at some point, whether it’s simply not being able to control your breathing, or not being able to appreciate language as poetry and music, or not having the power that Shakespeare automatically instills in you when you play one of his characters.”

Kirkland was a member of several New Age groups, taught Insight transformation seminars, and was a long-time member of the affiliated Church of the Spiritual Inner Consciousness Movement, whose followers believe in the transcendence of the soul.

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She reached the lowest point of her career while riding naked on a pig in the 1969 film “Futz,” which a Guardian critic called the worst film he had ever seen. “It was about a man falling in love with a pig, and even by the grim standards of the time, it was depressing,” he wrote.

Kirkland volunteered for people with AIDS, cancer, and heart disease, fed the homeless through the American Red Cross, participated in hospice telethons, and advocated for prisoners, especially young people.