Joanne Woodward

Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress. She has won an Academy Award, Golden Globe Awards, Emmy Awards and a Cannes award. She is the widow of Paul Newman, who was also an actor. Woodward is also a television and theatrical producer.

Early life
Woodward was born in Thomasville, Georgia. Her middle names, "Gignilliat Trimmier", are of Huguenot origin.

She wanted to become an actress because of her mother's love of movies. Her mother named her for Joan Crawford, using the Southern pronunciation of the name – "Joanne". She went to the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, when she was nine years old. During the parade of stars, she ran over and sat on the lap of Laurence Olivier. He was the romantic partner of a star in the movie, Vivien Leigh. The couple later married.

Woodward lived in Thomasville until she was in the second grade, when her family moved to Marietta, Georgia. They moved once again when she was a junior in high school, after her parents divorced. She graduated from Greenville High School in Greenville, South Carolina in 1947.

Woodward won many beauty contests as a teenager. She appeared in theatrical productions at Greenville High and in Greenville's Little Theatre. She played a major role in The Glass Menagerie, directed by Robert Hemphill McLane at the Little Theatre. She returned to Greenville in 1976, to play a starring role in another Little Theatre production of The Glass Menagerie. She had first returned in 1955 for the premiére of her first movie, Count Three And Pray, at the Paris Theatre on North Main Street. Woodward majored in drama at Louisiana State University. She then moved to New York City to perform on the stage.

Other websites

 * Joanne Woodward's thoughts on Earth Day 2006
 * Joanne Woodward's thoughts on Earth Day 2006