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Mary Steenburgen

Mary Steenburgen is an award-winning actress who is well known to both film and television audiences. Early in her career, she won an Academy Award for her role in Jonathan Demme's 1980 hit Melvin and Howard. Her performance in that film also brought her a Golden Globe Award, as well as Best Supporting Actress Awards from a number of critics groups, including the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics Associations and the National Society of Film Critics.

Steenburgen most recently starred with Matthew Perry in Numb, which screened at the 2007 Cannes and Tribeca Film Festivals, and Nobel Son, with Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman, which was also shown at Tribeca. She will next be seen in Honeydripper, directed by John Sayles, and Bertrand Tavernier's period drama In the Electric Mist.

Steenburgen's many other film credits include a wide range of roles in such films as the recent independent features Elvis and Anabelle, The Dead Girl and Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School; Jon Favreau's hit comedy Elf, opposite Will Ferrell and James Caan; the John Sayles films Casa de los Babys and Sunshine State; I Am Sam, with Sean Penn; Irwin Winkler's Life as a House, with Kevin Kline; Oliver Stone's Nixon, starring Anthony Hopkins; The Grass Harp; Philadelphia, which reunited her with Jonathan Demme; Lasse Hallstrom's What's Eating Gilbert Grape, with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio; Terry Hughes' The Butcher's Wife; Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future Part III; Ron Howard's Parenthood; End of the Line, which she also executive produced; Arthur Penn's Dead of Winter; Martin Ritt's Cross Creek; Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy; and Nicholas Meyer's Time After Time. In addition, she received Golden Globe Award nominations for her work in Milos Forman's Ragtime and Jack Nicholson's Goin' South, which marked her feature film debut.

In 2003, she starred alongside her husband, Ted Danson, in the telefilm It Must Be Love. They have also starred together in the television miniseries Talking to Heaven and Gulliver's Travels, and in the 1994 feature film Pontiac Moon.

On television, Steenburgen starred for two seasons on the Emmy¬nominated CBS series Joan of Arcadia. She was previously nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance as a developmentally disabled adult in the telefilm About Sarah; earned an Emmy Award nomination for her portrayal of Miep Gies in The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank; and received BAFTA and Cable ACE Award nominations for her role in the miniseries Tender is the Night. Her credits also include the telefilms Living with the Dead, Picnic and Noah's Ark.

In February 2006, Steenburgen starred in the David Mamet-directed play Boston Marriage at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse. Her stage work also includes starring roles in George Bernard Shaw's Candida at New York's Roundabout Theater and Marvin's Room at the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2007.
Read earlier biographies on this page.

Mary Steenburgen Facts

Birth Name Mary N. Steenburgen
OccupationActress
BirthdayFebruary 8, 1953 (71)
SignAquarius
BirthplaceNewport, Arkansas, USA
Height5' 8" (1m73)  How tall is Mary Steenburgen compared to you?
Awards1981 Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress (for Melvin and Howard)
1981 Golden Globe Awards: Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture (for Melvin and Howard)

Selected Filmography

Step Brothers
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
The Proposal
Elf
Step Brothers Unrated
A Walk in the Woods
Powder
Parenthood
Philadelphia
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