Goldie Hawn began taking ballet and tap dance lessons at the age of three, and danced in the chorus of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo production of The Nutcracker in 1955. She made her stage debut in 1961, playing Juliet in a Virginia Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet. She began her acting career as a cast member of the short-lived situation comedy Good Morning, World during the 1967-1968 television season. Her next role, which brought her to international attention, was as one of the regular cast members on the 1968–1973 sketch comedy show, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. In her first major film role, 1969's Cactus Flower, Goldie won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as Walter Matthau's suicidal fiancée. After her Academy Award win, Goldie's film career took off. She starred in a string of above average and successful comedies starting with There's a Girl in My Soup (1970), $ (1971), and Butterflies Are Free (1972). She continued proving herself in the dramatic league with the 1974 satirical dramas The Girl from Petrovka and The Sugarland Express, and Shampoo in 1975. Hawn's popularity continued into the 1980s, starting with another primetime variety special alongside actress and singer Liza Minnelli, Goldie and Liza Together (1980), which was nominated for four primetime Emmys. Hawn had mixed success in the early 1990s, with the thriller Deceived (1991), the drama CrissCross and opposite Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep in Death Becomes Her (both 1992). Hawn returned to the screen again in 1996 as the aging, alcoholic actress Elise Elliot in the financially and critically successful The First Wives Club, opposite Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, with whom she covered the Lesley Gore hit "You Don't Own Me" for the film's soundtrack. In 1997, Hawn, along with her co-stars from The First Wives Club, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler, were recipients of the Women in Film Crystal Awards. In 2005 Hawn's autobiography, A Lotus Grows in the Mud, was published. Hawn founded the Hawn Foundation, which provides youth education programs intended to improve academic performance through "life-enhancing strategies for well-being". The Hawn Foundation has supported research studies conducted by external researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of its educational program for children, called MindUP.Goldie Hawn is an Academy Award winning American actress, directorand producer best known for her roles in television's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and films such as Shampoo, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower.