Mary Steenburgen
Mary Nell Steenburgen[1] (/ˈstiːnbɜːrdʒən/; born February 8, 1953) is an American actress, comedian, singer, and songwriter. After studying at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1970s, she made her professional acting debut in the Western comedy film Goin' South (1978). Steenburgen went on to earn critical acclaim for her role in Time After Time (1979) and Jonathan Demme's comedy-drama film Melvin and Howard (1980), for which she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Mary Steenburgen
- Actress
- comedian
- singer
- songwriter
1978–present
2, including Charlie McDowell
Lily Collins (daughter-in-law)
Steenburgen received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Miloš Forman's drama film Ragtime (1981). Her other films include A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Cross Creek (1983), Back to the Future Part III (1990), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Nixon (1995), The Brave One (2007), Last Vegas (2013), A Walk in the Woods (2015), Book Club (2018), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023). She also became known for playing mothers in a string of comedy films such as Parenthood (1989), Elf (2003), Step Brothers (2008), Four Christmases (2008), The Proposal (2009), Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), The Help (2011), and Happiest Season (2020).
She received nominations for a BAFTA TV Award for the miniseries Tender Is the Night (1985) and a Primetime Emmy Award for the television film The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988). Steenburgen has worked as a singer-songwriter for numerous films, in some of which she starred. For her song "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)", written for the musical film Wild Rose (2018), she received the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song.
Early life[edit]
Steenburgen was born February 8, 1953, in Newport, Arkansas, to Nellie Mae (née Wall),[2] a school-board secretary, and Maurice Hoffman Steenburgen, a freight-train conductor who worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad.[3][4][1][5] She has a sister, Nancy Kelly (née Steenburgen), a teacher.[6] In 1971, she enrolled at Hendrix College to study drama.[1] She subsequently traveled to Dallas at the suggestion of her drama teacher where she successfully auditioned for New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.[1]
Personal life[edit]
In 1978, Steenburgen met and began dating actor Malcolm McDowell while both were co-starring in Time After Time.[14] They married and had two children together, including son Charlie McDowell. They divorced in 1990, and he remarried the next year.[15] On October 7, 1995, Steenburgen married actor Ted Danson, whom she had met on the set of the film Pontiac Moon, and became the stepmother to Danson's two daughters from his previous marriage to producer Cassandra Coates.[16][17]
Steenburgen resides in the Los Angeles area with her family.[18] An alumna of Hendrix College, she received an honorary doctorate from the institution in 1989.[19] In 2006, Steenburgen received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas.[20] In September 2005, she and Danson gave 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.[21]
Steenburgen is a friend of former senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and supported, with Danson, Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.[22] She spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Steenburgen is involved with various groups ranging from human rights to environmental causes.[23]
Since 2014, Steenburgen's son Charlie McDowell has had a running joke at her expense, claiming on numerous occasions on social media that his mother is actress Andie MacDowell.[24]