Mary Steenburgen
Mary Steenburgen won an Academy Award for her role in Melvin and Howard. Mary will soon be seen in Nobel Son, starring opposite Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman, and Numb, starring Matthew Perry. Both films will have their premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. She starred for two seasons on the Emmy nominated CBS series, Joan of Arcadia. In February 2006 she was seen in the David Mamet directed play Boston Marriage at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
In 2005, she co-stared in the independent feature Marilyn Hotchkiss'Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003 she was seen in the CBS television film It Must be Love co-starring her husband, Ted Danson. Mary co-starred in New Line Cinema's Elf, alongside Will Farrell and James Caan. She has appeared in two films for director John Sayles, Sunshine State, and Casa De Los Baby. In 2001 Mary appeared alongside Kevin Kline in Irwin Winkler's Life as a House, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. She has constantly redefined herself through challenging roles in films such as Philadelphia, Parenthood and What's Eating Gilbert Grape.
In spring of 2002, Mary was seen starring with her husband, Ted Danson in a CBS television miniseries entitled Talking to Heaven. They had previously worked together in 1996 on the critically acclaimed NBC miniseries Gulliver's Travels, and in the 1994 feature film Pontiac Moon.
Mary starred with Jon Voight and F. Murray Abraham in Robert Halmi's Noah's Ark for NBC, and was also nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award, for her role in About Sarah, a two- hour made for television movie for CBS in which she played a developmentally disabled adult.
Other films that encompass Mary's career include: The Grass Harp, with Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon and Piper Laurie, as well as Back to the Future III, Time After Time, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Cross Creek, One Magic Christmas, Dead of Winter and End of the Line, in which she also served as the film's executive producer.
Steenburgen's career on the stage includes, starring in The Beginning of August, Holiday, George Bernard Shaw's production of Candida at New York's Roundabout Theater and most recently in Marvin's Room at the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles.
In addition to her professional work, Mary has devoted a great deal of time to causes close to her heart. In 1989 she and fellow actress, Alfre Woodard founded Artists for a Free South Africa, and in 1996 Mary and Ted were presented with Liberty Hill Foundation's prestigious Upton Sinclair Award for their work in human rights and environmental causes.
Mary is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, the daughter of a railroad conductor and a public high school secretary. She began her career at the age of nineteen in New York. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband. They are the parents of four children, Kate, Lilly, Charlie and Kat.