When I ran into Glenn Close at the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) annual meeting last spring, she told me that the movie she had just completed, Albert Nobbs, was one of the most challenging projects of her career.
This morning, Close got an Academy Award nomination for her offbeat role in the film: Close plays a woman posing as a man in order to get a job and survive in nineteenth-century Dublin. Her acting, it turns out, is only half of her tour de force here: She raised all the money for Albert Nobbs herself.
"Not one cent of our budget, which was $8 million, came from Hollywood," the actress said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Interviewed by Ariel Investments President Mellody Hobson, Close explained that the seed of her labor of love was planted 20 years ago when she played Albert Nobbs on the stage in New York City. To make the movie she wanted to make, she realized she had best fund it herself. In fact, she used the money from the sale of her apartment in Manhattan for her initial investment.
Close knows her way around financial circles. She and her husband, businessman David Shaw, are pals with Warren Buffett—hence her pilgrimages to Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway annual meetings. Nonetheless, she and her Albert Nobbs' co-producer, Bonnie Curtis, had to scrounge for money to get their project to the screen. They found their other key financier in Fort Worth: Crescent Real Estate Holdings Chairman John Goff had never invested in a project like this, Close told the MPW Summit audience. But Goff decided to take a risk on her film because she had "skin in the game."
Here's more from Close on Albert Nobbs—and her take on how her character relates to women today:
Lisa Suennen is one of the few big-deal venture capitalists in health care. Not that this distinction makes her happy or proud.
Suennen, whose Psilos Group has $577 million under management, would rather see more of her kind in her industry, as she wrote today in a Guest Post on my colleague Dan Primack's Term Sheet. Attending JPMorgan's Healthcare Conference last week in San Francisco, Suennen noticed that only about 10% MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 17, 2012 2:39 PM ET
Chelsea Handler showed us a new side of her media brand-ness last night on the premiere of the NBC (CMCSA) sitcom Are You There, Chelsea? The standup comic/late-night TV host/best-selling author/rising-star entrepreneur plays main character Chelsea's pregnant and proper sister on the show.
Let's be clear, this is not Handler's fantasy life. At the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in October, Arianna Huffington tried her best to convince Handler of the MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 12, 2012 11:23 AM ET
Clara Shih is an early achiever. At age five, she arrived in the U.S., from Hong Kong, with her parents. With no access to bilingual education, she was initially placed in special classes for kids with speech impediments and advanced so rapidly that she scored a 1420 on her SATs -- in eighth grade. She started her company, Hearsay Social, at age 27, made Fortune's list of Most Powerful Women MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 11, 2012 10:22 AM ET
What companies did Warren Buffett put on his wish list for Santa Claus?
The secret is out.
The Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) chief sent a photo of himself, perched on Santa's lap, and named several companies that he apparently believes will be great stocks to own in 2012.
Under the header, "Santa - 2011," Buffett listed Exxon Mobil (XOM), Wells Fargo (WF)--both companies in which he already owns shares--and Google (GOOG). No public records MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 4, 2012 10:35 AM ET
Michele Bachmann appears destined for a single-digit portion of the votes in today's Iowa caucus, but low Presidential poll numbers are not stopping her from comparing herself to Margaret Thatcher. In a final plea to Iowa voters, she said, "We need to have someone who's going to campaign and govern in the image of a Ronald Reagan and a Margaret Thatcher."
Bachmann is no Ronald Reagan. But after Mary Civiello wrote MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 3, 2012 1:15 PM ET
Last we heard from media and presentation coach Mary Civiello, she weighed in on lessons from the Oscar-winning The King's Speech. She's back in the movie theater studying another icon of British history: Margaret Thatcher, portrayed by Meryl Streep in Iron Lady. Civiello knows of what she speaks: She works with executives at such companies as Morgan Stanley (MS), American Express (AXP), DreamWorks Animation (DWA), Merck (MRK) and Fortune's parent, MORE
Patricia Sellers - Dec 29, 2011 9:36 AM ET
Yesterday's Postcard asking if corporate women will ever be as powerful as corporate men prompted lots of discussion and a bit of inspiration.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg chimed in again, advising me to take credit and own my power. (Um, didn't I first chide Sandberg to own her power, according to Ken Auletta's New Yorker profile?)
Hilary Rosen, also quoted in yesterday's Postcard, pinged me to say that years ago when she MORE
Patricia Sellers - Dec 28, 2011 10:32 AM ET
Over Christmas weekend, Sheryl Sandberg emailed me, sounding a bit distressed.
Referring to a big story about Fortune's Most Powerful Women in Sunday's Washington Post (WPO), the Facebook COO asked if I'd been misquoted in saying that I believe women will never have 50% of the top jobs in corporate America. "Don't depress me!" Sandberg wrote.
Sorry, Sheryl, the Post quoted me correctly.
I do, in fact, believe that women won't ever—ever!--reach parity MORE
Patricia Sellers - Dec 27, 2011 9:48 AM ET
This past summer, when Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg emailed me about Clara Shih, we at Fortune knew to keep a lookout.
"I think she is awesome," Sandberg wrote in her email.
Sure enough, Starbucks (SBUX) yesterday named 29-year-old Shih, a social-media entrepreneur, to replace Sandberg on its board of directors.
A 29-year-old on the Starbucks board?!
Starbucks is bulking up on social-media expertise at a time when boards of most Fortune 500 companies desperately MORE
Patricia Sellers - Dec 15, 2011 1:20 PM ETPattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.