Juleen Compton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Juleen Compton | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1933 Phoenix, Arizona, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Filmmaker, writer, actress |
Juleen Compton (born 1933, Phoenix, AZ)[1][2] is an American independent filmmaker, writer, and actor. She is best known for Stranded (1965) and The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966), which she wrote, directed, and financed.[3] She also starred in and distributed Stranded.
The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean won a special award at Cannes, as well as an award at the San Francisco Film Festival, and was screened at MoMA in 1970.[4][5] She studied acting with Lee Strasberg, and performed in a production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in 1955 and played the title role in a production of Jean Anouilh's Jeannette in 1960.[3][6][7] She also originated the role of Fredrica in John Patrick's Broadway comedy Good As Gold in 1957, alongside Roddy McDowall and Zero Mostel, and played Myrrhina in a production of Lysistrata in 1959 that re-opened the East 74th Street Theater.[8][9] The UCLA Film & Television Archive likens her work to that of the French New Wave.[3] In 1974 she took part in the first Directing Workshop for Women at the American Film Institute.[3] Compton also at one point began on a documentary of the history of women directors in Hollywood called Women in Action, "but there's no trace of it."[1]
In the 1990s Compton moved to New York City to run the Century Center for the Performing Arts, an off-Broadway theater company.[3] Compton's other writing credits include the TV movies Virginia Hill (1974), which starred Dyan Cannon and Harvey Keitel, and Women at West Point (1979).[10] Her directing credits include Buckeye and Blue (1988).[10] A script by Compton entitled Two Nice Girls is among a New York Public Library collection of scripts "produced, co-produced, or sponsored" by the New York Shakespeare Festival between 1972 and 1992.[11]
In an article for The New Yorker in 2019, film critic Richard Brody, discussing Stranded, stated that with the film, Compton "places herself boldly in a tradition of director-stars that includes Charlie Chaplin and Erich von Stroheim, Orson Welles and Jacques Tati," as well as "Jean Seberg, Shirley MacLaine, and Judy Garland."[1]
In February 2022, TIFF's Bell Lightbox Theater screened The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean as the first in its Midnight Madness screening series following closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.[12]
