Ellen Burstyn is a stage and screen actress known for such iconic works as The Exorcist, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and Requiem for a Dream. As the Oscar, Tony, and Emmy award winning actress celebrates her 90th birthday, we take a look at her impressive career.

Burstyn was born Edna Rae Gillooly on December 7, 1932, in Detroit, Michigan. She started working as a model when she was 18 years old, then in the late 1950s, she got her first acting gig as a dancer on The Jackie Gleason Show. Her Broadway debut was in Fair Game in 1957, using the stage name Ellen McRae. She worked primarily in TV on The Doctors and The Iron Horse, and had a small role in Goodbye, Charlie.

Her breakthrough performance (now as Ellen Burstyn) was in 1971’s The Last Picture Show, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. Two years later, Burstyn starred in the groundbreaking horror film The Exorcist as an actress whose daughter becomes possessed by a demon. Playing the haggard, terrified mother earned Burstyn her second Oscar nod – a rarity in the horror genre.

It was in ’74 that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore for playing a single mother struggling to support her family. A year later, Burstyn saw more awards season success, winning a Tony for Same Time, Next Year. She got her third and fourth Oscar nominations in ’78 when she starred in the film version of Same Time, Next Year, then in ’80 for Resurrection.

In the ‘80s, Burstyn expanded her career to serve as president of Actor’s Equity Association from ’82 to ’85. She joined the Actors Studio in ’82 as co-artistic director with Al Pacino, serving in the position through ’88. She was nominated for an Emmy for the miniseries The People vs. Jean Harris, and was in Surviving, Into Thin Air, Pack of Lies, and her own comedy series The Ellen Burstyn Show.

Burstyn was in How to Make an American Quilt, The Spitfire Grill, the underrated dramedy Playing By Heart as the mother of a son who is battling AIDS, Walking Across Egypt, The Yards, and the comedy series That’s Life. In Requiem for a Dream, the disturbing drama about drug abuse, she played a woman addicted to diet pills who is driven to the edge of her sanity. She was nominated for her sixth Oscar for her harrowing performance.

She had a recurring role in Big Love, won an Emmy for a guest spot on Law & Order: SVU, was in the miniseries Political Animals (winning another Emmy), starred in the Flowers in the Attic TV movie (getting another Emmy nod), and played Sara Delano Roosevelt in The First Lady series. Burstyn has signed on to reprise her role of Chris MacNeil for an Exorcist sequel, 50 years after the original film.