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Ellen Barkin is an American actress born on April 16, 1954 in the Bronx, New York. Her father was a chemical salesman while her mother was a hospital administrator. She was raised in a strict Jewish household. Ellen Barkin graduated at he Manhattan’s High School of Performing Arts and eventually attended Hunter College and finished with a degree in drama and history. She then wanted to be a history teacher, but rather chose to take on further studies in acting, this time at New York’s Actor’s Studio. According to Time magazine, she first spent seven years on acting classes before taking on her first audition.

Upon her breakout role in Barry Levinson’s Diner in 1982, Ellen Barkin has since been a notable actress during the 1980s, with successful films such as Sea of Love opposite Al Pacino and The Big Easy co-starring Dennis Quaid. While on film she also ventured into theatre, and appeared in various off-Broadway plays. Her performances often impressed critics, and according to Frank Rich of the New York Times, ‘If it were really possible to give the kiss of life to a corpse, the actress Ellen Barkin would be the one to do it. In Eden Court, the moribund play that has brought her to the Promenade Theater, Miss Barkin is tantalizingly alive from her bouncing blond ponytail to the long legs that gyrate wildly and involuntarily every time an Elvis Presley record plays on stage.’

Ellen Barkin has also been active in doing TV films, among of which were Before Women Had Wings, in which she received and Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries and a Golden Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries, and the White River Kid in 1999. In 2005, she established a production company with her brother George and ex-husband Ronald Perelman. She is at present suing Perelman for the $3.4 million investment funds he was supposed to invest, but failed to do so.

This strong-willed actress has been married twice, first to actor Gabriel Byrne whom she has two children. Her second marriage was with Ronald Perelman that ended in a messy divorce in 2006, with Ellen Barkin receiving $40 million.