Shirley Knight on AllMovie

Shirley Knight trained at the Pasadena Playhouse, then debuted onscreen in 1959. The following year she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her work in Delbert Mann's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960); two years later she was again nominated, this time for portraying Paul Newman's childhood sweetheart in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). Candid about her dissatisfaction with Hollywood, Knight concentrated on the stage in the mid '60s and had several successes on Broadway. She moved to London in 1966 with her husband, stage producer Gene Person, to appear in his film Dutchman (1967). She remained in England for several years, appearing in films and TV productions; there she divorced Person and married British playwright John Hopkins, after which she was sometimes billed as "Shirley Knight Hopkins." In the mid '70s she returned to Broadway. Her screen appearances since 1971 have been sporadic, although she did have a role in the 1994 thriller Color of Night.