Elizabeth Lee McGovern was born on 18 July 1961, in Evanston, Illinois USA, and is a musician and actor, probably best known for her Academy Award nominated performance in the film “Ragtime” in which she played Evelyn Nesbit. She was also part of the series “Downtown Abbey” playing Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham. All of her efforts have helped put her net worth to where it is today.
How rich is Elizabeth McGovern? As of early-2017, sources inform us of a net worth that is at $4 million, mostly earned through a successful career in acting, including being nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for her performance in “Downtown Abbey”. As she continues her career, it is expected that her wealth will increase.
Elizabeth McGovern Net Worth $4 million
During the play “The Skin of Our Teeth”, an agent saw Elizabeth’s performance and recommended that she take acting lessons. She attended the American Conservatory Theater and later went to The Julliard School in New York City, where in 1980 while still studying, she was offered a part in the film “Ordinary People”, playing the girlfriend of Timothy Hutton’s character. After finishing her education, she appeared in several off-Broadway plays, and the following year she became part of “Ragtime”, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her net worth was well established.
In 1984 McGovern starred in the film “Once Upon a Time in America” as the love interest of Robert De Niro, and was then cast in two more lead roles in “Racing with the Moon” starring Sean Penn and the comedy “Lovesick” appearing as a patient of a psychiatrist played by Dudley Moore. In 1989, she appeared in the Walter Hill film “Johnny Handsome” which starred Mickey Rourke, and later in the year became part of “The Handmaid’s Tale” as a rebellious lesbian. Her next project would be the romantic comedy “She’s Having a Baby”, co-starring with Kevin Bacon, followed by a part in the thriller “The Bedroom Window”, before teaming up with Michael Caine in “A Shock to the System”, and in 1994 starring in “The Favor” alongside Brad Pitt, and would also appear in 20 more films during the 2000s.
For her television projects, she made an appearance in the 2006 episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”. Other projects she has been part of include “Tales from the Crypt”, “The Changeling”, and “Agatha Christie’s Poirot”. In 2008, she was cast in the three part series “Freezing” and would later become part of the highly acclaimed series “Downtown Abbey” which she was a part of from 2010 to 2015.
Additionally, she is also the singer-songwriter of the band Sadie and the Hotheads.
For her theatre work, she’s been a part of numerous productions, including “Painting Churches”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Three Days of Rain” and “The Shawl”, all of which contributed steadily to her net worth.
For her personal life, it is known that she was engaged to actor Sean Penn when she was 23 years old. In 1992, she married film director Simon Curtis and the couple have two daughters.
Full Name
Elizabeth McGovern
Net Worth
$4 Million
Date Of Birth
July 18, 1961
Place Of Birth
Evanston, Illinois, U.S.
Height
1.75 m
Profession
Actress
Education
Juilliard School, American Conservatory Theater
Nationality
American
Spouse
Simon Curtis
Children
Matilda Curtis, Grace Curtis
Parents
William Montgomery McGovern Jr., Katharine Wolcott
Siblings
Cammie McGovern, William Montgomery McGovern
Twitter
IMDB
Awards
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Nominations
Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie, Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television, Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Tele…
Movies
Once Upon a Time in America, Ragtime, Racing with the Moon, Ordinary People, She’s Having a Baby, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, Johnny Handsome, The Favor, Woman in Gold, The Bedroom Window, Kick-Ass, The Wings of the Dove, Clash of the Titans, Buffalo Soldiers, Angels Crest, A Shock to the Syst…
TV Shows
Downton Abbey, Three Moons Over Milford, The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Freezing, If Not for You
Quote
1
I had reconciled myself to being happily out to pasture, a bit.
2
In today’s world, we all live with the burden of feeling that anything is possible if we’re only clever enough, smart enough, work hard enough.
3
It’s very tough when two creative people are together.
4
I don’t believe in villains – just people who channel their energy in the wrong way.
5
It’s peaceful for people to know how their lives are going to be, pretty much.
6
I can’t just sit around thinking how lucky I am.
7
That feeling of being 19 or 20 and ‘hot’ in Hollywood was so intense.
8
I like writing letters and receiving letters. It’s a shame that we’ve lost the art of letter-writing and saving correspondence. I mourn that.
9
Now we have to contend with overstimulation and too many opportunities all the time, and too many decisions all the time.
10
Well, I have a band, “Sadie and the Hotheads”, and we have an album that is already out that is available on our website.
11
I’ve got my private life – that’s sacred – and I didn’t have that before.
12
Well, when I moved to England I was making a lot of personal adjustments because I was getting married and starting a family, that sort of thing.
13
I have a terrible sense of direction.
14
By definition, an actor’s life is a recipe for regret. There are always roads you could have taken. But I’ve lived long enough to realize that each road has its own rewards.
15
England as a culture has endured so much more than America has as a culture, so it’s given them a different perspective.
16
My family were all into classical music, and I found that very intimidating.
17
I’ve found acting on stage much more challenging than on screen.
18
So the English approach to show business and their work is more – and this is a big generalization, I hasten to say – but it’s more, they work on it as a craft job.
19
My father was an academic, an eccentric. He was a lecturer.
20
North Hollywood isn’t actually Hollywood, it’s in the San Fernando Valley… it’s not the most glamorous part of L.A.
21
I wasn’t ecstatic about being pregnant – I wasn’t somebody who actively wanted kids. Certainly there were no fantasies about nappy-changing.
22
I miss sometimes the buzz of America. A sense that anything can change at the drop of a hat. In a way, it’s an exhausting thing to live with.
23
As far as I can see women who have facelifts don’t look younger, just weirder. You see them on screen with these tight, little porcelain faces – then the hand goes up to the face and it looks like it belongs to an alien. I find it really freaky.
24
I’ve been in things that have impressed people and they’ve come up to congratulate you but in a kind of, you-must-think-you’re-really-special way.
25
I love having the opportunity to explore a part for a great length of time, really get deeper and deeper into it, because you only have a chance to do that once or twice in a career.
26
To me, the lyrics of the song define the kind of style it is.
27
In London, I take the Tube everywhere.
28
I’m someone who’s done the opposite of whatever the received wisdom is, to keep your career going into your 50s.
29
We lack rituals in this modern world.
30
If I feel I can play a part I do everything in my power to try to play it.
31
Whenever I work on anything, there’s always the fantasy that what one is doing is the next ‘Citizen Kane’-slash-‘Sopranos.’
32
Most people grow up dreaming of going to Hollywood and some of them work and work and work and finally end up in Hollywood.
33
I still feel I’m doing the same work I’ve always done.
34
Hollywood never suited me, I didn’t ever feel comfortable with it, it took me a couple of years but I found where I was always meant to be… Chiswick!
35
I just find it fascinating, like everybody, to be in a different life. It’s an escape.
36
My job now is to work hard and learn all I can.
37
I turned down the opportunity to be in some films that went on to be blockbusters.
38
There is nothing in my life where I view myself as a 1920s person.
39
Honestly, I am always shocked when I see myself in the mirror because I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 18 getting off the plane to go to Juilliard in New York.
40
On careers other than acting: “I probably would have become a veterinarian, or I might have lived on a ranch somewhere and raised horses, or I might have become more serious about painting, or I might have worked in a Burger King.”
Fact
1
Can be seen in The Making of ‘Amadeus’ (2002), uncredited. In footage from her screen tests (in costume, apparently testing for the role of Constanze) her face has been blurred but her name can be read clearly on handwritten lists of actors that appear onscreen in a shooting log.
2
She has Scottish, English, and more distant German, ancestry.
3
Met husband-to-be Simon Curtis on Performance: Tales from Hollywood (1992), an episode of the popular BBC TV series Performance (1992), where Curtis was a producer.
4
Her band “Sadie and the Hotheads” (formed 2007) opened for Sting at the Montreux Jazz Festival Switzerland (July 16th, 2013).
5
Appeared opposite Richard Dreyfuss and David Suchet in the disastrous production of Complicit directed by Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic. [January 2009]
6
Recently appeared on British television in a situation comedy written by her husband Simon Curtis. [February 2008]
7
Is appearing in the British series “Downton Abbey” which is presently showing on PBS in the USA. [January 2011]
8
Now lives in England, UK [April 2006]
9
Counts Henry James and Edith Wharton among her favorite authors.
10
Has two daughters named Matilda (b. July 1993) and Grace Curtis (b. 1998).
11
Daughter of Katie and Bill McGovern.
12
Has lived in West London (UK) since 1992.
13
Sings and plays guitar in her own band “Sadie and the Hotheads”.
14
Has a brother, William Montgomery McGovern, “Monty” who is a professor of mathematics.
15
Was engaged to Sean Penn after falling in love on the set of Racing with the Moon (1984).
16
As a young actress on the New York stage, McGovern was required in one play to pray over some candles that were set on a bed. Realizing that the bed had caught fire halfway through her monologue, McGovern kept talking while trying to pat out the flames. She thought she had the situation pretty well under control, when firefighters suddenly arrived onstage to clear the theater.
17
Dropped out of college when she was studying acting at The Juilliard School in order to accept the ingénue role in Ordinary People (1980).
18
Her younger sister Cammie McGovern is a novelist, whose latest novel [2006] is “Eye Contact.”
Actress
Title
Year
Status
Character
The Commuter
2017
post-production
Showing Roots
2016
Shirley
Downton Abbey
2010-2015
TV Series
Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham
Swung
2015
Dolly
Woman in Gold
2015
Judge Florence Cooper
Unexpected
2015
Carolyn
Text Santa 2014
2014
TV Movie
Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham
Civil War: The Untold Story
2014
TV Mini-Series documentary
Narrator (voice)
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
2012
Mrs Thatcham
Wallis Simpson: The Secret Letters
2011
TV Movie
Wallis Simpson (voice)
Angels Crest
2011
Jane
Clash of the Titans
2010
Marmara
Kick-Ass
2010
Mrs. Lizewski
10 Minute Tales
2009
TV Series
Ex Wife
Freezing
2008-2009
TV Series
Elizabeth
Agatha Christie’s Poirot
2008
TV Series
Dame Celia Westholme
Inconceivable
2008
Tallulah ‘Tutu’ Williams
A Room with a View
2007
TV Movie
Mrs. Honeychurch
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
2007
TV Series
Dr. Faith Sutton
Daphne
2007
TV Movie
Ellen Doubleday
Three Moons Over Milford
2006
TV Series
Laura Davis
The Truth
2006
Donna
The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire
2003
TV Series
Helen Shaw
Thursday the 12th
2003
TV Movie
Candice Hopper
Buffalo Soldiers
2001
Mrs. Berman
Hawk
2001
TV Movie
Susie Hawkins
Table 12
2001
TV Series
Mel
The Flamingo Rising
2001
TV Movie
Edna Lee
The House of Mirth
2000
Mrs. Carry Fisher
Manila
2000
Elizabeth
The Scarlet Pimpernel
1999
TV Series
Lady Marguerite Blakeney
Twice Upon a Yesterday
1998
Diane
The Misadventures of Margaret
1998
Till Turner
Clover
1997
TV Movie
Sara Kate
The Wings of the Dove
1997
Susan
The Summer of Ben Tyler
1996
TV Movie
Celia Rayburn
Broken Glass
1996
TV Movie
Margaret Hyman
Tales from the Crypt
1996
TV Series
Laura Kendall
Tracey Takes On…
1996
TV Series
Judge Loring
If Not for You
1995
TV Series
Jessie Kent
Broken Trust
1995
TV Movie
Janice Dillon
Wings of Courage
1995
Noëlle
The Favor
1994
Emily Embrey
Performance
1992-1993
TV Series
Beatrice-Joanna Helen Schwartz
Me and Veronica
1993
Fanny
King of the Hill
1993
Lydia
Ashenden
1991
TV Mini-Series
Aileen Somerville
Women and Men: Stories of Seduction
1990
TV Movie
Vicki
Tune in Tomorrow…
1990
Elena Quince
A Shock to the System
1990
Stella Anderson
The Handmaid’s Tale
1990
Moira
Johnny Handsome
1989
Donna McCarty
She’s Having a Baby
1988
Kristy Briggs
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam
1987
TV Movie documentary
Me (voice)
The Bedroom Window
1987
Denise
Native Son
1986
Mary Dalton
Faerie Tale Theatre
1984
TV Series
Snow White
Racing with the Moon
1984
Caddie Winger
Once Upon a Time in America
1984
Deborah Gelly
Lovesick
1983
Chloe Allen
Ragtime
1981
Evelyn Nesbit
Last Year’s Model
1980
Short
Ordinary People
1980
Jeannine
California Fever
1979
TV Series
Lisa Bannister
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Inconceivable
2008
devised in collaboration with – as Elizabeth Mcgovern
Soundtrack
Title
Year
Status
Character
Angels Crest
2011
writer: “One Thing Leads To Another”
Thanks
Title
Year
Status
Character
Teen Knight
1999
special thanks
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Our Queen at Ninety
2016
TV Movie documentary
Herself – Narrator (US version) (voice)
Million Dollar American Princesses
2015-2016
TV Mini-Series
Herself
Live with Kelly and Michael
2015
TV Series
Herself – Guest
PBS NewsHour
2015
TV Series
Herself
The Talk
2015
TV Series
Herself
The Chew
2015
TV Series
Herself
Good Morning America
1990-2015
TV Series
Herself – Guest
BBC News 8pm Summary
2015
TV Series short
Herself
The Making of Woman in Gold
2015
Video documentary short
Herself / Judge Florence Cooper
The Kumars
2014
TV Series
Herself
Tavis Smiley
2013
TV Series
Herself – Guest
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding: Behind the Scenes
2013
Video documentary short
Herself / Mrs Thatcham
Loose Women
2013
TV Series
Herself
Arena
2012
TV Series documentary
Herself – Narrator
Charlie Rose
2012
TV Series
Herself – Guest
Skavlan
2012
TV Series
Herself – Guest
Sunday Brunch
2012
TV Series
Herself – Guest
AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Shirley MacLaine
2012
TV Movie
Herself
The 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards
2012
TV Special
Herself – Nominee: Best Actress in a Mini-Series or TV-Movie
Downton Abbey: Behind the Drama
2011
TV Movie
Herself
The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards
2011
TV Special
Herself – Nominated: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie
Daybreak
2011
TV Series
Herself
My Life in Books
2011
TV Series
Herself
The Graham Norton Show
2010
TV Series
Herself – Guest
Frostrup on Sunday
1999
TV Series
Herself
Late Night with Conan O’Brien
1994
TV Series
Herself – Guest
The 62nd Annual Academy Awards
1990
TV Special
Herself – Presenter: Best Makeup
Today
1985
TV Series
Herself – Guest
Working in the Theatre
1985
TV Series documentary
Herself
The 55th Annual Academy Awards
1983
TV Special
Herself – Co-Presenter: Best Visual Effects
Archive Footage
Title
Year
Status
Character
Downton Abbey Revisited
2012
TV Movie documentary
Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham
OK! TV
2011
TV Series documentary
Cora, Countess of Grantham
Remembering ‘Ragtime’
2004
Video documentary short
Evelyn Nesbit (uncredited)
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1990
TV Series
Elena Quince from film TUNE IN TOMORROW…
Won Awards
Year
Award
Ceremony
Nomination
Movie
2016
Actor
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Downton Abbey (2010)
2015
Actor
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Downton Abbey (2010)
2013
Actor
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Downton Abbey (2010)
Nominated Awards
Year
Award
Ceremony
Nomination
Movie
2015
BAFTA Scotland Award
BAFTA Awards, Scotland
Best Actress – Film
Swung (2015)
2014
Actor
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Downton Abbey (2010)
2012
Golden Globe
Golden Globes, USA
Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television
Downton Abbey (2010)
2012
OFTA Television Award
Online Film & Television Association
Best Actress in a Drama Series
Downton Abbey (2010)
2011
Primetime Emmy
Primetime Emmy Awards
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie
Downton Abbey (2010)
2011
Gold Derby TV Award
Gold Derby Awards
TV Movie/Mini Lead Actress
Downton Abbey (2010)
2011
OFTA Television Award
Online Film & Television Association
Best Actress in a Motion Picture or Miniseries
Downton Abbey (2010)
2011
Satellite Award
Satellite Awards
Best Actress in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television