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IMDbPro

Ellen Barkin

  • Actress
  • Producer
IMDbProStarmeter
Top 5,000119
Ellen Barkin at an event for Happy Tears (2009)
A case of mistaken identity forces a bumbling entrepreneur to team up with a notorious assassin known as The Man from Toronto in hopes of staying alive.
Play trailer2:25
The Man from Toronto (2022)
78 Videos
99+ Photos
Offbeat, unconventionally pretty, and utterly mesmerizing, Ellen Barkin was born on April 16, 1954 in the Bronx, New York, to Evelyn (Rozin), a hospital administrator, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman. Her parents were both from Russian Jewish families. Raised in the South Bronx and Queens, New York area, she wanted to be an actress as early as her teens and was eventually accepted into Manhattan's High School of the Performing Arts.

Barkin then attended Hunter College and received her degree after double majoring in history and drama. At one point she wanted to teach ancient history, but instead turned her thoughts back to her first love: acting. Barkin then continued her education at New York's Actor's Studio. Fearful of the auditioning process, she studied acting for seven years before finally landing her first audition. While continuing her studies, she worked as a waitress at the avant-garde Ocean Club. Performing off-Broadway in such plays "Shout Across the River" (1979), "Extremities" (1983), "Fool for Love" (1984) and "Eden Court" (1985), she was applauded across the board for her first film lead in Diner (1982) opposite Mickey Rourke and Daniel Stern, and pursued sexy tough-cookie status thereafter with such quirky roles in The Big Easy (1986) starring Dennis Quaid and Siesta (1987) with Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, whom she married in 1987 and separated from in 1993 after producing a son and daughter. She and Byrne divorced in 1999.

With trademark squinting eyes and slightly off-kilter facial features, Barkin continued the fascination of her seamy/steamy girl-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks status most notably opposite Al Pacino in the thriller Sea of Love (1989). In addition, she was well cast as Robert De Niro's abused wife in This Boy's Life (1993), and portrayed "Calamity Jane" in Wild Bill (1995) with earnest. Other impressionable offbeat projects included roles in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) and Mercy (2000). On TV, she was well-cast in the mini-movie Blood Money (1988) and won an Emmy award for her gripping performance in Before Women Had Wings (1997) opposite Oprah Winfrey as another abused wife who, in this case, turns her violent anger on her own daughters.

In 2000, Barkin married billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, eleven years her senior and chairman of the Revlon company, and put her career relatively on hold, appearing sporadically in edgy films like She Hate Me (2004) and Palindromes (2004). Barkin and Perelman went through an acrimonious divorce in 2006.

Just prior to her divorce in late 2005, Barkin ventured into independent film production with Applehead Pictures, a company she set up with her brother George Barkin, who is a scriptwriter and former editor-in-chief of National Lampoon and High Times, and former Independent Film Channel executive Caroline Kaplan. In her first major acting appearance since her divorce from Perelman, Barkin co-starred in Ocean's Thirteen (2007) with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and former co-star Pacino. She followed up Ocean's with a supporting role in Antoine Fuqua's Brooklyn's Finest (2009), Happy Tears (2009) with Parker Posey and Demi Moore, and Twelve (2010).

Barkin has produced features over time, including Letters to Juliet (2010) and Another Happy Day (2011) (she also starred in the latter project). On the small screen, she appeared in an episode of Modern Family (2009) and her new NBC show, The New Normal (2012), got a sneak peek during the Olympics.

More recent sightings have included the films The Chameleon (2010), Very Good Girls (2013), The Cobbler (2014), Hands of Stone (2016) and Active Adults (2017). She has had regular roles on the TV series The New Normal (2012) and Animal Kingdom (2016).
BornApril 16, 1954
  • More at IMDbPro
    • Contact info
    • Agent info
    • Resume
BornApril 16, 1954
IMDbProStarmeter
Top 5,000119
  • View contact info at IMDbPro
  • Won 1 Primetime Emmy

Photos363

Ellen Barkin in Tender Mercies (1983)
Ellen Barkin in Tender Mercies (1983)
Ellen Barkin and Robert Duvall in Tender Mercies (1983)
Ellen Barkin in Tender Mercies (1983)
Ellen Barkin in Tender Mercies (1983)
Ellen Barkin in SHTF (2019)
Ellen Barkin and Finn Cole in Animal Kingdom (2016)
Ellen Barkin in Animal Kingdom (2016)
Ellen Barkin in Animal Kingdom (2016)
Ellen Barkin in Animal Kingdom (2016)
Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Barkin, and Tracey Ellis in This Boy's Life (1993)
Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin in This Boy's Life (1993)

Known for

Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes in The Fan (1996)
The Fan
5.9
  • Jewel Stern
  • 1996
Kirstie Alley, Ellen Barkin, Kirsten Dunst, and Denise Richards in Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
Drop Dead Gorgeous
6.6
  • Annette Atkins
  • 1999
Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Weller, and John Lithgow in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
6.2
  • Penny Priddy
  • 1984
Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ellen Barkin in This Boy's Life (1993)
This Boy's Life
7.3
  • Caroline
  • 1993

Credits

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IMDbPro

Actress

  • The Out-Laws
    • Completed
  • Poker Face (2023)
    Poker Face
  • Woody Harrelson and Kevin Hart in The Man from Toronto (2022)
    The Man from Toronto
  • Ellen Barkin, Juliette Lewis, Matthew Modine, Clifton Collins Jr., Allison Janney, Mila Kunis, Regina Hall, Jimmi Simpson, Wanda Sykes, Christopher Lowell, and Awkwafina in Breaking News in Yuba County (2021)
    Breaking News in Yuba County
  • Animal Kingdom (2016)
    Animal Kingdom
  • Hollywood Mom (2015)
    Hollywood Mom
  • Lola Kirke and Jonathan Rosen in Active Adults (2017)
    Active Adults
  • Oprah Winfrey in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017)
    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
  • Hands of Stone (2016)
    Hands of Stone
  • Steve Coogan in Happyish (2015)
    Happyish
  • Adam Sandler in The Cobbler (2014)
    The Cobbler
  • Jimmy Fallon in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2014)
    The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
    • (uncredited)
  • Ellen Barkin, Justin Bartha, Andrew Rannells, Georgia King, NeNe Leakes, and Bebe Wood in The New Normal (2012)
    The New Normal
  • Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen in Very Good Girls (2013)
    Very Good Girls
  • Sofía Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sarah Hyland, Ed O'Neill, Eric Stonestreet, Beatrice the Dog, Ariel Winter, Nolan Gould, Rico Rodriguez, Reid Ewing, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, and Jeremy Maguire in Modern Family (2009)
    Modern Family
  • A Mann's World

Producer

  • Demi Moore, Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Thomas Haden Church, Kate Bosworth, and Ezra Miller in Another Happy Day (2011)
    Another Happy Day
  • Shit Year (2010)
    Shit Year
  • Amanda Seyfried in Letters to Juliet (2010)
    Letters to Juliet

Videos81

Operation Endgame
Clip 0:53
Operation Endgame
"You're Done" from Brooklyn's Finest
Clip 1:03
"You're Done" from Brooklyn's Finest
"Let's Just Take a Ride" from Brooklyn's Finest
Clip 0:53
"Let's Just Take a Ride" from Brooklyn's Finest
"It's Not What You Expect" from Brooklyn's Finest
Clip 0:40
"It's Not What You Expect" from Brooklyn's Finest
"You Need a New House" from Brooklyn's Finest
Clip 1:20
"You Need a New House" from Brooklyn's Finest
"Think You're a Tough Guy?" from Brooklyn's Finest
Clip 1:04
"Think You're a Tough Guy?" from Brooklyn's Finest
"I'm Not a Role Model" from Brooklyn's Finest
Clip 0:57
"I'm Not a Role Model" from Brooklyn's Finest
"They're Gonna Pin a Medal on You" from Brooklyn's Finest
Clip 1:01
"They're Gonna Pin a Medal on You" from Brooklyn's Finest
Hands of Stone
Clip 1:07
Hands of Stone
Johnny Handsome
Clip 1:24
Johnny Handsome
Official Trailer
Trailer 2:25
Official Trailer
Trailer
Trailer 2:10
Trailer

Personal details

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    • Twitter
    • April 16, 1954
    • The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
    • Ronald O. PerelmanJune 28, 2000 - February 14, 2006 (divorced)
    • George Barkin(Sibling)
  • Other works
    Is the voice heard in the introduction to every episode of Bob Dylan's XM satellite radio show, "Theme Time Radio Hour with your host Bob Dylan".
  • Publicity listings
    • 2 Interviews
    • 6 Articles
    • 13 Pictorials
    • 4 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

Edit
  • Trivia
    Ex-husband, Ronald O. Perelman, is the billionaire owner of the Revlon company.
  • Quotes
    No more bare bodies in film scenes for me. For my children's sake, I must stop. The other kids at school keep throwing it up to my children, and they are not kind.

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