Born November 20, 1927 in Lynn, Massachusetts, Parsons was educated at the Connecticut College for Women and then Boston University, where she studied law.
In the late 1950s, she began appearing in satirical reviews and stage productions, first in stock, then Broadway and Off Broadway
Estelle Parsons is one of the few actresses to have two consecutive Oscar nominations, both in the supporting league.
She won the Supporting Actress Oscar in “Bonnie and Clyde,” her second feature, in which she played the neurotic Blanche Barrow, Clyde's sister-in-law.
A year later, she secured a second Supporting Actress nomination for “Rachel Rachel,” directed by Paul Newman and starring his wife, Joanne Woodward. The winner in 1968 was vet actress Ruth Gordon, as the modern witch in Roman Polanski's “Rosemary's Baby.”