Biography: Mary Steenburgen

Mary Nell Steenburgen^[1] (born February 8, 1953) is an American actress.

Personal life

Steenburgen was born in Newport, Arkansas, the daughter of Nellie Mae (née Wall), a school-board secretary, and Maurice Steenburgen, a freight-train conductor who worked at the Missouri Pacific Railroad.^[2][3][4][5] Steenburgen grew up in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Steenburgen married Malcolm McDowell in 1980 and they had two children together: Lily Amanda, born January 31, 1981, and Charles Malcolm, born July 10, 1983. The two divorced in 1990, and Steenburgen has been married to actor Ted Danson since 1995.

In September 2005, she and Danson provided a guest lecture for students at the Clinton School of Public Service where they discussed their roles in public service as well as the foundations and causes in which they are involved.^[6] An alumnus of Hendrix College, Steenburgen received an honorary doctorate from the institution in 1989.^[7] In 2006, Steenburgen received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas.

She is a close personal friend of Secretary of State and former Senator Hillary Clinton, and supported Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign along with her husband.

She splits her time living in Ojai, California and Martha's Vineyard, in addition to sharing a condominium with Danson in the River Market District of Little Rock.

Career

Steenburgen moved to New York City in 1972, working at Doubleday's while studying acting at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse under William Esper.^[8] Her break came when she was discovered by Jack Nicholson in the reception room of Paramount's New York office and was cast as the lead in his second directorial effort, the 1978 Western Goin' South.^[8] In only her third film, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1980 film Melvin and Howard, playing the wife of a man who claims to have befriended reclusive eccentric Howard Hughes.

She had a leading role in the 1979 film Time After Time as a modern woman who falls in love with author H.G. Wells, played by husband-to-be Malcolm McDowell. In both this film and Back to the Future later on, she played the love interest of a time traveler.

Other notable film appearances came in the well-received 1983 film Cross Creek, her performance as an adulterous wife in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? with Johnny Depp, as Hannah Nixon in the Oliver Stone biopic Nixon, and as a woman who discovers her husband is the father of a North Pole elf in the Will Ferrell holiday comedy Elf. She appeared in the 2008 comedy Step Brothers, another movie starring Will Ferrell, playing the mother of Ferrell's character.

In a little-known film, The Butcher's Wife, also starring Demi Moore and Jeff Daniels, Steenburgen plays a lead role in which she also sings. Film critic Charles Taylor, in The New York Times, said Steenburgen's "slow-drip voice comes to your ears like honey arriving on a moonbeam". She also acted in the film Life as a House.

Steenburgen played Clara Clayton in Back to the Future Part III (1990), a role which her children, fans of the Back to the Future movies, convinced her to play. She reprised the role by providing the character's voice in Back to the Future: The Animated Series.

She has starred in the sitcom Ink and the television miniseries of Gulliver's Travels with husband Ted Danson. She appeared as herself alongside Danson in the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. In 2002 she played "Grace Rinato" in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, in the episode "Denial."

In recent years she has been in the comedy films Four Christmases, Step Brothers and The Proposal.

According to a written note owned by Garry Marshall, Steenburgen was the first choice to play the lead in the 1990 film Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts.

Steenburgen will appear in a forthcoming film production about the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, to be directed by Niki Caro. Steenburgen is slated to play Canadian reporter Linda Mack, who tried to mislead ABC News' Pierre Salinger on the subsequent investigation.

Steenburgen received the 2,395th star on Hollywood Walk of Fame on December 16, 2009.

Filmography

References

1. ^ Search Results
2. ^ Mary Steenburgen biography. Film Reference.com.
3. ^ Mary Steenburgen biography. Yahoo! Movies.
4. ^ Stony Reception in Little Rock; Film by Mary Steenburgen Draws Cries of Foul in Arkansas | Article from The Washington Post | HighBeam Research
5. ^ http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=29
6. ^ Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson Speak to students at the Clinton School
7. ^ "Hendrix College - Encyclopedia of Arkansas"
8. ^ ^{a b} Mary Steenburgen: Biography. TV Guide.com.

External links

• Mary Steenburgen at the Internet Movie Database
• Mary Steenburgen Named 27th Sexiest Woman Over 50

Mary Steenburgen main page.