\n\tThe daughter of a top magazine fashion editor, the statuesque Kirkland in the 1960s appeared nude on stage for Terrence McNally<\/a> and in an Andy Warhol<\/a> film on the way to compiling more than 260 onscreen acting credits on IMDb.<\/p>\n \n\tKirkland also portrayed a pasties-wearing stripper and romantic interest of Robert Redford<\/a>\u2018s character in George Roy Hill\u2019s The Sting (1973), an outrageous rock star opposite Kevin Costner in Tony Scott\u2019s Revenge (1990) and Rose Cheramie, a woman who claimed to know about a presidential assassination attempt in advance, in Oliver Stone\u2019s JFK (1991).<\/p>\n \n\tThe New York native collected Golden Globe and Spirit awards for her performance as the title character, an aging Czechoslovakian actress forced to take a stand-in job in a horrible off-Broadway play, in Anna. Written by Agnieszka Holland, the drama was made for less than $1 million and distributed by independent film company Vestron Pictures.<\/p>\n \n\tAmid much love from the critics, Kirkland was nominated as best actress in 1988 along with Meryl Streep of Ironweed, Glenn Close of Fatal Attraction, Holly Hunter of Broadcast News and eventual winner Cher of Moonstruck.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAt the Oscars, there were all these movie stars emerging from their limos, and then there was me. I felt like Cinderella,\u201d she said<\/a> in 2012. \u201cThe greatest part was the feeling to be in the same Oscar category of these women that I was a huge fan of \u2014 Meryl, Glenn, Holly Hunter and Cher, who I used to roller skate with in the \u201970s.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe followed up her acclaimed performance with starring turns in such erotic thrillers as High Stakes (1989) and In the Heat of Passion (1992) and in the 1991 Fox telefilm The Haunted, for which she received another Globe nom.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cA lot of people would have said, \u2018She made a lot of wrong choices,\u2019 thinking that I should have continued to do Anna-type films,\u201d she said in a 2013 interview.<\/p>\n \n\tShe was born in New York City on Oct. 31, 1941. Her mother, also named Sally Kirkland, was a fashion editor at Vogue and Life magazines who put Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Faye Dunaway and Jacqueline Kennedy on covers and hired photographer Gordon Parks; her father, Frederic, was from a wealthy Philadelphia Main Line family.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen I was a kid, it was all about how decadent can we be,\u201d she told<\/a> Skip E. Lowe in a 1990 interview. \u201cLSD was on the cover of Time magazine, Timothy Leary was very big, and Harvard University and Cary Grant were endorsing it. So I went and did it thinking it was, like, legal. I had been a very normal kid, and from that point on I went through a lot of trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tKirkland studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then with Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio, where her classmates included Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. She danced in Hey, Let\u2019s Twist! (1961), served as an understudy on Broadway and appeared off-Broadway alongside James Earl Jones<\/a> in The Love Nest.<\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, she worked as a hat check girl at The Bitter End nightclub and as a go-go dancer at the Peppermint Lounge.<\/p>\n \n\tHer mom knew Warhol, and he put Kirkland in his 1964 film The 13 Most Beautiful Women. \u201cAndy used to say to me, \u2018Just sit in front of the camera and do nothing,’\u201d she recalled in a 2006 interview, \u201cand I would say, \u2018I\u2019m a Strasberg-trained actress, what do you mean do nothing?’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn 1968, the 5-foot-9 Kirkland became one of the first actresses to appear nude in a legitimate stage play when she starred as a kidnapped woman opposite Robert Drivas in McNally\u2019s Sweet Eros. She spent the entire 45 minutes of the two-person, off-Broadway production without clothes. \u201cIt was a political statement. You can\u2019t carry a gun on a naked body,\u201d she said<\/a> in 1989.<\/p>\n
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