Lee Grant is an American actress, documentarian, and director. For her film debut in 1951 as a young shoplifter in William Wyler's Detective Story, Grant earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and won the Best Actress Award at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. Grant won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Warren Beatty's older lover in Shampoo (1975).

Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-American actress and theatre practitioner. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, who called her "a profoundly truthful actress." Because Hagen was on the Hollywood blacklist, in part because of her association with Paul Robeson, her film opportunities dwindled and she focused her career on New York theatre.