Biography
Shirley Enola Knight was an American actress who worked in theatre, film and television from the late 1950s until 2018.
She received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). In 1976 she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Kennedy's Children. She also won three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Her later screen credits include As Good as It Gets (1997), in which she played Beverly Connelly, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) and its 2015 sequel, and guest roles in series such as Desperate Housewives (2004) and House (2004).
