Mary Nell Steenburgen (born February 8, 1953) is an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Biography

Personal life

Steenburgen was born in Newport, Arkansas, the daughter of Nell, a school-board secretary, and Maurice Steenburgen, a freight-train conductor who worked at the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Steenburgen grew up in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Steenburgen married Malcolm McDowell in 1980 and they had two children together: Lily Amanda, born January 21, 1981 and Charles Malcolm born July 10, 1983, before divorcing in 1990, and 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. In 2006, Steenburgen received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas.

She is a close personal friend of former First Lady, current New York Senator Hillary Clinton, and supported Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign along with her husband.

She splits her time living in California and Martha's Vineyard.

Career

Steenburgen moved to New York City in 1972, working at Doubleday's while studying acting at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. 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. 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 billionaire Howard Hughes.

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 the Back to the Future: The Animated Series.

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" she played the love interest of a time traveler. Other notable film appearances came as an adulterous wife in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? with Johnny Depp, as the mother of Richard 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.

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.

She also has starred in the sitcom Ink and the television miniseries of Gulliver's Travels with husband Ted Danson. She has appeared as herself alongside Danson in the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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".

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Other notes
1978	Goin' South	Julia Tate/Moon	Nominated - Golden Globe
1979	Time After Time	Amy Robbins
1980	Melvin and Howard	Lynda Dummar	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; Golden Globe
1981	Ragtime	Mother	Nominated - Golden Globe
1982	A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy	Adrian
1983	Faerie Tale Theatre	Mary / Little Red Riding Hood	Little Red Riding Hood
	Cross Creek	Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
	Romantic Comedy	Phoebe Craddock
1985	One Magic Christmas	Ginny Hanks Grainger
	Tender Is the Night	Nicole Warren Diver	TV mini-series; Nominated - BAFTA Award
1987	The Whales of August	Young Sarah
	Dead of Winter	Julie Rose/Katie McGovern/Evelyn
1988	The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank	Miep Gies	television movie; Nominated - Emmy Award
	End of the Line	Rose Pickett
1989	Parenthood	Karen Buckman
	Miss Firecracker	Elain Rutledge
1990	The Long Walk Home	Narrator voice
	Back to the Future Part III	Clara Clayton
1991	The Butcher's Wife	Stella Keefover
1993	Philadelphia	Belinda Conine
	What's Eating Gilbert Grape	Betty Carver
1994	Pontiac Moon	Katherine Bellamy
	The Gift	TV
	It Runs in the Family	Mrs. Parker (Mother)
	Clifford	Sarah Davis
1995	Nixon	Hannah Nixon
	Powder	Jessie Caldwell
	The Grass Harp	Sister Ida
	My Family	Gloria
1996	Gulliver's Travels	Mary Gulliver	TV
	Ink	Kate Montgomery	TV Series
1998	About Sarah	Sarah Elizabeth McCaffrey	TV
1999	Noah's Ark	Naamah	TV
2000	Curb Your Enthusiasm	Herself	4 episodes
	Picnic	Rosemary Sydney	TV
2001	I Am Sam	Dr. Blake
	Life as a House	Colleen Beck
	The Trumpet of the Swan	Mother Voice
	Nobody's Baby	Estelle
2002	Wish You Were Dead	Sally Rider
	Sunshine State	Francine Pinkney
	Living with the Dead	Detective Karen Condrin	TV
2003-2005	Joan of Arcadia	Helen Girardi	TV Series - 45 episodes
2003	Elf	Emily
	Casa de los babys	Gayle
	Hope Springs	Joanie Fisher
2004	Capital City	Elaine Summer	TV
	It Must Be Love	Clem Gazelle	TV
2005	Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School	Marienne Hotchkiss
2006	The Dead Girl	Beverley, Leah's Mother
	''Inland Empire	Visitor #2
2007	Reinventing the Wheelers	Claire Wheeler	TV
	Elvis and Anabelle	Geneva
	Numb	Dr. Cheryl Blaine
	Nobel Son	Sarah Michaelson
	The Brave One	Carol
	Honeydripper	Amanda Winship
2008	Step Brothers	Nancy Huff
	In the Electric Mist	Bootsie Robicheaux	awaiting release
	Four Christmases	Kate's Mom	post-production
	The Open Road	Katherine	post-production
2009	The Proposal	TBA	post-production

References

External links