- Leigh Taylor Young -
- Leigh Taylor Young -
Current Projects:
For all current projects please see Leigh Taylor Young's webpage.
(from Ms. Young's Webpage)
Leigh
Taylor-Young has earned high acclaim as an Emmy Award winning actress and
international personality. She is as comfortable on a film set as she is at a
podium, speaking on behalf of the Institute for Individual and World Peace.
With fifteen feature films and numerous television series to her credit, Leigh has also become a major spokesperson for "corporate" America and many other distinguished organizations. She has represented the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as the keynote speaker in Nairobi, Kenya for the 20th Anniversary ceremonies, the Better World Society, MCI Corporation, Hands Across America, the American Cancer Society, the Institute for Individual and World Peace, and hosted the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. She is an Advisory Board member for The EduCare Foundation, a youth leadership training program and The Heartfelt Foundation.
In her first major role, Leigh starred opposite Peter Sellers in the theatrical comedy, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas. Many feature films followed. Some of her best known credits include, Jagged Edge with Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges, Looker with Albert Finney, The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight with Robert DeNiro, Soylent Green with Charlton Heston, and The Horsemen with Omar Shariff.
Leigh has appeared in over one hundred hours of television in such well known series as, Peyton Place, Dallas and the CBS award winning Picket Fences, for which she won an Emmy. She has starred in eight Movies of the Week.
In addition to her film and television work, Leigh has a special passion for the theater. She had the unique privilege of performing in one of Samuel Beckett's last works, The Beckett Plays, directed by Alan Schneider at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She went on to appear with the company at the Harold Clurman Theatre in New York, the Donmar Warehouse Theatre in Covent Garden, London, and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Leigh then traveled to Paris, at the request of Beckett himself, to meet with him -- an honor she shares with a very select group of fellow actors.
Leigh has worked for Ted Turner's Better World Society. She is the voice of the Search for Serenity series of audio meditations for The Course in Miracles. She has also produced and narrated a series of creative visualization tapes in development with her own company. She continues research in the area of health, fitness and alternative forms of healing and consciousness. Leigh deeply believes that body, mind and spirit are intertwined. This is revealed in her contagious enthusiasm for life and her incisive, intellectual curiosity. She is an ordained minister in the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness and works closely with John Roger, an educator and Wayshower.
Born to a diplomatic family in Washington, DC, Leigh began her formal education as an Economics major at Northwestern University. She soon changed to Theater and studied under the renowned teacher, Alvina Krause. In recognition of Leigh's exceptional talent, Krause allowed her the opportunity to perform as the youngest member of the distinguished Eaglesmere Summer Repertory Theatre. Leigh subsequently continued her studies in New York City with Sanford Meisner, at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Leigh's varied pursuits have taken her to many corners of the world. She has been active on behalf of the environment as a Special Advisor in Arts and Media for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as a representative for the Institute for the Study of Individual and World Peace. In addition to her keynote address for UNEP's 20th Anniversary, Leigh was the Goodwill Ambassador from the United Nations for ICEBRIDGE: First Arctic Environmental Forum 1995.
Leigh Taylor-Young's communication skills, dedication to service and pertinent issues, together with her life experiences -- from classical ballet student, to 60's flower child and early stardom, through motherhood and beyond -- are virtually unsurpassed in diversity.
Leigh has one son, Patrick, and a new granddaughter. She resides in Los
Angeles, California.