Hollywood Legend Elizabeth Ashley's Advice To Young Actresses: Crawl Like A Snake

Ashley was married to “The A-Team” star, hottie George Peppard.

She was weird. Not for everyone's taste.

LINE!

Booze and dolls.

I have this somewhere. It was one of the better memoirs of its day. Lots of anecdotes about her crazy husbands…George Peppard and Jimmy Farentino, as well as Tennessee Williams and many more.

I bet half her current teeth are dentures.

She needed to be reined in. I could never get past her rummaging through Talia Shire’s garbage to sniff the disposed of tampon in ‘Interiors’. It was a Ned Beatty moment for me from her, though I did enjoy her as the oversexed Raquel during her brief stint on “Three’s Company”.

ACTRESS is one of the greatest autobiographies ever written, and if you have read it you know it’s pure Liz, no fucks given. The whole bookend narrative of the book is her procuring a ball of coke/crack so she can get through Cat with “the flu”. Tennessee himself said she was the best Maggie ever.

R7 You mean “Windows.” I like how she went full on phallic symbol with the telescope at the climax.

Did she play the predatory porn star in the (even trashier) sequel to Valley of the Dolls? Luv her.

God, she could suck a cherry through a straw.

Just looked at her imdb and this bitch doesn't stop working. Good for her.

The best “later Ashley” was Babette Van Degan in The Two Mrs. Greenvilles.

She also played Olivia Benson’s mother on SVU.

She was in that awful Evening Shade s(h)itcom in the early 1990s.

Does say how that cute blond George Peppard turned into a fat blimp?

I've always loved her. I saw her in the roadshow of Agnes Of God in the 80s with Mercedes McCambridge.

She was in a not-great episode of DL favorite Family, hamming it up as a filmmaking cougar who got her claws into Willie.

Got a kick out of the fact that the Post article used a photo of her “Love American Style” appearance (in which she appeared with Burt Reynolds) to accompany the article!

As noted, “Actress” is an excellent book. So many great anecdotes. Her chapter on the filming of “Ship of Fools” (AMAZING cast!) was especially interesting.

Became a huge fan of hers after listening to her two-hour interview on the Carson podcast. This generations Shelley Winters, she's practically worked with them all (and fucked a lot of the men) and has a shit ton of stories to tell.

92 in the Shade is on YouTube. Not much of a movie, but tons of behind the scenes drama. Leading ladies Elizabeth and Margot Kidder were both screwing novelist/director Tom McGuane (Who was married at the time) His wife, meanwhile, was fucking 92 co-star Warren Oates. Margot winds up getting pregnant, and McGuane dumps both his wife and Ashley, marries Margot and divorces her a year later before she goes to England to shoot Superman. McGuane's ex wife breaks it off with Oates, and hooks up with the leading man of 92 in the Shade, Peter Fonda. They eventually marry and just divorced a few years back.

The 70's were fucking wild!

Another big fan of ACTRESS. It was one of my first “pandemic books” and I absolutely ate it up. EA is completely unfiltered in it — her life is definitely not boring. I agree that it’s one of the best autobiographies ever.

She always had the voice of someone who smoked a lot of cigarettes

r22: Don't forget that after she smoked them, she washed the ashes down her throat with lots of whiskey!

And crack!

I picked up a copy of this book finally and read it in a single sitting. You were not lying when you said it’s one of the best autobiographies. I had gone off the genre with so many churning out books where everyone is a friend and the ex who screwed the nanny is a sweet man. Elizabeth held nothing back. I wish she had a part 2. I’d love to know more about her life at sea where she’d disappear for months on end with some sketchy dudes. A real original which is probably why she wasn’t more famous.

Russian Doll must be her favorite show to work on because they let her smoke.

Love her, what a voice! But I wonder if she's bipolar. Would explain a lot.

Glad she made it to 83. That actors' home can take her if she's hard up.

Possibly bipolar. If the video at R3 is not the result of cocaine then bipolar is the only other possibility I think. She’s wired!

She slummed it on the soap opera "Another World" for a few months in 1990.

She liked to kiss and tell. Back in the 70s she was on every talk show blabbing about her drug-fueled sexcapades. Not everyone in Hollywood was all about open free love, especially married producers/directors. She was her own worst enemy

OP- She was quite attractive when she was young.

Love her in Vampire’s Kiss, as Nicolas Cage’s psychiatrist.

I saw her in Vanities with Lesley Ann Warren and the legendary Miss Barbara Sharma.

She also appeared in a VERY SPECIAL episode of Family. She played a filmmaker who has a brief affair with Willie and gets to see his WILLIE 🍆