Sally Kirkland, Oscar-nominated film and television actress, dies at 84 Film

Sally Kirkland, the Oscar-nominated actress who starred in Andy Warhol’s The Factory, has died at the age of 84.

The film star, who included Anna, JFK and Bruce Almighty, had entered a nursing home two days before her death after a period of ill health. Last year, a GoFundMe page was set up to help her following a “life-threatening infection” and a number of falls. She was also diagnosed with dementia.

Kirkland began her career as a model before studying acting with classmates including Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. After acting off-Broadway in the early 1960s, she was also part of Andy Warhol’s The Factory and the artist placed her in the 1964 drama The 13 Most Beautiful Women in which she appeared naked and tied to a chair.

She went on to star in the Western Blue with Terence Stamp and the explicit underground sexual thriller Coming Apart in the 1960s while also appearing on stage in Terrence McNally’s Sweet Eros as a kidnapped woman in which she spent the entire production without any clothes on.

“I think I’m more European in character,” she once said in an interview. “My attitude is always one of sensuality, aggressive enthusiasm and a kind of rawness in my facial expression. I think if I wanted to be the girl next door, I could have been. I think America is confused by someone who seems sexual and spiritual at the same time.”

The 1970s saw her take on small roles in The Way We Were, A Star is Born and The Sting on the big screen while she also appeared on the small screen in Starsky & Hutch, Charlie’s Angels and Kojak.

After the 1980s saw her appear alongside Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin, she received an Oscar nomination for the fact-based comedy-drama Anna after a grassroots campaign. She also won a Golden Globe Award for this role. “At the Oscars, there were all these stars getting out of their limousines, and then I was there,” she said. “I felt like Cinderella.”

She played a stripper in the 1989 film High Stakes and had plastic surgery for the film which she later regretted because she “almost died from them”. She later had them removed and founded the Kirkland Institute for Implant Retention Syndrome.

The 1990s saw her play herself in Robert Altman’s The Player and she also appeared in JFK, Excess Baggage and EdTV while later credits included Bruce Supreme, Factory Girl and Brady’s 80’s. Television roles also included Felicity and Roseanne and Murder, She Wrote.

Kirkland has also worked as an acting teacher with students including Sandra Bullock, Barbra Streisand, and Liza Minnelli.

“My life is not about acting,” she once said. “It’s about expressing my vision of life. No matter what, everyone deserves a fair chance.”