Harris, [Julia Ann] Julie (b. 1925), actress. Born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and educated at the
Yale School of Drama, the somewhat elfin actress made her Broadway debut in
It's a Gift (1945). After a series of failures she won high praise for her performance as the lonely tomboy Frankie Addams in
The Member of the Wedding (1950). Further laurels came when she starred as the drifting, amoral Sally Bowles in
I Am a Camera (1951). Brooks
Atkinson wrote of her performance, “She plays with a virtuosity and an honesty that are altogether stunning, and. . .has the quick‐silver and the genius we all long to discover on the stage.” Among her other memorable performances were the ambitious actress Mademoiselle Colombe (1954), a gamin Joan of Arc in
The Lark (1955), daydreaming Georgina in the musical
Skyscraper (1965), middle‐aged divorcée Ann Stanley in
Forty Carats (1968), the emotionally disturbed teacher Anna in
And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little (1971), Mary Todd Lincoln in
The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1972), the dying wife Lydia Crutwell in
In Praise of Love (1974), and poet Emily Dickinson in the one‐person program
The Belle of Amherst (1976). Only a few of these scripts were of much value, and Harris would struggle throughout her long career to find vehicles that were worthwhile. In her later years she replaced others and led touring productions of
On Golden Pond,
Driving Miss Daisy, and
The Gin Game (1997).