By Bianca Sierra
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Sally Kirkland Jr. (October 31, 1941 – November 11, 2025) was an American actress and producer. A one-time member of Andy Warhol‘s The Factory, she was in 1960s New York avant-garde theater. She appeared in more than 250 film and television productions during a 60-year career. Kirkland was the daughter of Sally Kirkland, fashion editor of Life and Vogue.
Kirkland garnered widespread critical acclaim for her eponymous performance as a former popular actress in the independent comedy-drama Anna (1987), which earned her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.
Kirkland was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for her performance in the horror film The Haunted (1991). She was also known for her roles in Cold Feet (1989), Best of the Best (1989), JFK (1991), and Bruce Almighty (2003).
Kirkland was born in New York City on October 31, 1941. She was named after her mother, Sally Kirkland (née Phinney), who was a fashion editor at Vogue and Life, and grew up in Oklahoma. She was a go-go dancer at the Peppermint Lounge in Los Angeles. Next she was a Vogue model and then studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen. Notable Bobby (Robert De Niro) dated one of her roommates. Kirkland graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles in 1961.
She was a painter and a noted acting teacher whose students included Sandra Bullock, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Dwight Yoakam, and Roseanne Barr, among others.
Kirkland later suffered from dementia. She been placed in hospice care following complications from a fall in October that injured her ribs and foot. She had also been battling a bone infection that spread to her bloodstream. She died in Palm Springs, California, on November 11, 2025, at 84, two days after entering hospice care.
