Ellen Greene Biography

Supercharged American stage and screen actress Ellen Greene was educated at Ryder College. After her leading-lady film debut in Next Stop Greenwich Village (1978), Ellen’s career was steady but unspectacular until she was cast as airheaded heroine Audrey in the 1982 Broadway musical hit Little Shop of Horrors. She was among the few cast members to recreate her role for the 1986 screen version; so winning was her performance in this film and the subsequent Talk Radio (1988), that critics and pundits predicted major stardom. So far as Ellen was concerned, she was already a star, and behaved accordingly. Cast as a neurotic rock ‘n’ roller-turned-evangelist in the 1989 TV movie Glory! Glory!, Ms. Greene became difficult and demanding, throwing her weight around in a manner suggesting that she been on top long enough to be permitted this behavior. Evidently her imperiousness paid off; Glory! Glory! was an excellent effort, thanks in no small part to the towering performance of its leading lady. After Glory! Glory!, Ellen Greene continued to get good roles on stage and in television; in 1992, the actress joined several other musical comedy veterans as a voice artist for the animated cartoon feature Rock a Doodle.