Mary Steenburgen

Mary Steenburgen
Steenburgen at the 2009 ceremony to receive her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Born	Mary Nell Steenburgen (1953-02-08) February 8, 1953 (age 68) Newport, Arkansas, U.S.
Alma mater	Hendrix College
Occupation	Actress singer songwriter comedian
Years active	1978–present
Spouse(s)	Malcolm McDowell ​ ​ (m. 1980; div. 1990)​ Ted Danson ​ (m. 1995)​
Children	2, including Charlie McDowell
Awards	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress: Melvin and Howard (1980) Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture: Melvin and Howard (1980)

Mary Nell Steenburgen^[1](/ˈstinbɛrɡɛn/) (born February 8, 1953) is an American actress, comedian, singer, and songwriter. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's 1980 film Melvin and Howard.

Steenburgen, who studied at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1970s, also received a Golden Globe nomination for the 1981 film Ragtime, a BAFTA TV Award nomination for the 1985 miniseries Tender Is the Night, and an Emmy Award nomination for the 1988 TV film The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank. Her other film appearances include Time After Time (1979), Cross Creek (1983), Parenthood (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Philadelphia (1993), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Elf (2003), The Brave One (2007), Step Brothers (2008), The Proposal (2009), The Help (2011), A Walk in the Woods (2015), Book Club (2018), and Happiest Season (2020).

Early life[]

Steenburgen was born February 8, 1953, in Newport, Arkansas, to Nellie Mae (née Wall; 1923–2010),^[2] a school-board secretary, and Maurice Hoffman Steenburgen (1914–1989), a freight-train conductor who worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad.^[3][4][1][5] She has a sister, Nancy (Steenburgen) Kelly, a teacher.^[6] Her ancestry includes Dutch,^[7] English, Scottish, and Welsh.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[1]

Career[]

Early career[]

Steenburgen moved to Manhattan in 1972 after the Neighborhood Playhouse offered her an opportunity to study acting. She worked as a server at The Magic Pan and for Doubleday while studying under William Esper.^[6]

Film career[]

Steenburgen's break came when she was discovered by Jack Nicholson in the reception room of Paramount's New York office and was cast as the female lead in his second directorial work, the 1978 Western Goin' South.^[6]

Steenburgen had a leading role, for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress, in the 1979 film Time After Time, as a modern woman who falls in love with author H. G. Wells, played by Malcolm McDowell, whom she married the following year.

In her third film, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1980 film Melvin and Howard, playing Lynda Dummar, the wife of Melvin Dummar, then a trucker and aspiring singer, who claimed to have befriended reclusive eccentric Howard Hughes. Another notable film appearance came in the well-received 1983 film Cross Creek, portraying Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling. In 1985, she also starred in the movie One Magic Christmas as a mother and wife who falls on devastating times at Christmas only to rely on a Christmas miracle to save her family. In 1989, she played Karen Buckman in Parenthood. In Back to the Future Part III (1990), Steenburgen played Clara Clayton, a school teacher who falls in love with Doc Brown. She was persuaded to play the role by her children, as well as by fans of the Back to the Future films, and reprised the role by providing the character's voice in Back to the Future: The Animated Series.

Other performances have been: in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), as a woman who is having an affair with the title character; My Summer Story (1994), as the mother of Ralphie Parker (the sequel to A Christmas Story); the role of Hannah Nixon in the Oliver Stone biopic, Nixon (1995); and the Will Ferrell 2003 comedy Elf, as a woman who discovers that her husband is the father of one of Santa's elves.

Steenburgen in December 2000

She has appeared in the comedy films Step Brothers (2008), playing the mother of Will Ferrell's character; Four Christmases (2008); and The Proposal (2009).

Dirty Girl, which featured Steenburgen, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2010. She also appeared in the critically acclaimed film The Help (2011) and had a featured role as a lounge singer, who is the romantic interest in a love triangle, in the 2013 comedy Last Vegas.

She had a small part in the 2015 film A Walk in the Woods as Jeannie. In 2018, Steenburgen starred in the romantic comedy film Book Club.

Television career[]

In television, Steenburgen appeared as Kate Montgomery in Ink (1996) and co-starred as Mary Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels (1996). She has a recurring role as herself in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Steenburgen co-starred as Helen Girardi, the mother of Amber Tamblyn's title character in Joan of Arcadia. In 2011, she had a recurring role as Josephine in the HBO sitcom Bored to Death. Steenburgen starred as Anastasia Lee in the 2011 FX pilot, Outlaw Country,^[8] but it was passed by the network.^[9] She appeared in the dark sitcom Wilfred from 2011 through 2013 as Catherine Newman, the title character's eccentric and mentally ill mother. Steenburgen had a recurring role on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock from 2012 to 2013 where she played Diana Jessup.

In 2014, she began a recurring role as former Dixie Mafia boss Katherine Hale in the fifth and sixth seasons of Justified.

From 2015 to 2018, she starred as Gail Klosterman on the comedy series The Last Man on Earth.

Since 2020, she has played the role of Maggie Clarke in Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist from NBC, now in its second season.

Music career[]

In 2007, Steenburgen underwent minor surgery on her arm, which required a general anesthetic; shortly thereafter, she began experiencing "music (...) playing in her head day and night". She subsequently took music lessons so that she could write down what she was hearing, and by 2013 had almost 50 songwriting credits. She has collaborated with musicians from Nashville and was also signed to Universal Music as a songwriter. In Last Vegas, Steenburgen plays a lounge singer and even performs one of her original compositions on screen.^{[citation needed]} In 2018, her composition "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)" as performed by Jessie Buckley featured as the climactic musical moment in the film Wild Rose and won Steenburgen several awards, including Critics Choice Award.^[10] On October 30, 2020, Steenburgen signed a global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group.^[11]

Personal life[]

In 1978, Steenburgen met and began dating actor Malcolm McDowell while both were co-starring in Time After Time.^[12] They married and had two children together, including son Charlie McDowell. They later divorced.^[13] 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.^[14][15] Steenburgen resides in the Los Angeles area with her family.^[16] An alumna of Hendrix College, she received an honorary doctorate from the institution in 1989.^[17] In 2006, Steenburgen received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas.^[18] 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.^[19]

Steenburgen is a friend of former senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and supported, along with Danson, Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.^[20] She also spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Steenburgen also is involved with various groups ranging from human rights to environmental causes.^[21]

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.^[22]

Filmography[]

Film[]

Television[]

Awards and nominations[]

In addition to these recognitions, Steenburgen received the 1,337th star on Hollywood Walk of Fame on December 16, 2009.^[23]

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mary Steenburgen.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Mary Steenburgen

• Mary Steenburgen at IMDb 
• Mary Steenburgen at AllMovie
• Mary Steenburgen: The Gift of Giving