Martha Plimpton

Martha Plimpton (born November 16, 1970 ) is an American actress, activist, and former model.

Plimpton began her career as a model, securing an early 1980s campaign for Calvin Klein, making an impression as a sophisticated but tomboyish little girl.

Her feature-film debut was in Rollover (1981); she subsequently rose to prominence in the Richard Donner film The Goonies (1985).

She made her feature film debut in 1981 with a small role in the film Rollover.

In 1984, she appeared in the Deep South drama The River Rat opposite Tommy Lee Jones, as his "hoydenish daughter".

Her breakthrough performance was as Stef Steinbrenner in the 1985 film The Goonies.

She also appeared that year in the sitcom Family Ties.

She has also appeared in The Mosquito Coast (1986), Shy People (1987), Running on Empty (1988), Parenthood (1989), Samantha (1992), Small Town Murder Songs (2011), Frozen II (2019), and Mass (2021).

This began Plimpton being cast in the role of a rebellious tomboy, beginning with her performance as the Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory)'s daughter in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast, starring Harrison Ford.

The critically praised but commercially unsuccessful 1987 film Shy People was followed by a performance in the 1988 ensemble comedy Stars and Bars.

This was released shortly before Running on Empty, an Oscar-nominated film, in which Plimpton appeared opposite River Phoenix, her boyfriend, both 17–18 years of age, like their characters.

For this role, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award.

In her late teenaged years, Plimpton was also active in theater, performing in regional theater in Seattle, Washington, where her mother was living at the time.

She also began a career making small independent film appearances with supporting roles in big-budget films.

She appeared in the 1988 Woody Allen film Another Woman.

She starred as a cancer patient in the German film Zwei Frauen (1990) (released in America as Silence Like Glass).

The film was nominated for a German Film Award as Best Fiction Film.

Plimpton shaved her head to play a cancer patient in Zwei Frauen.

She played the independent teenage daughter of Dianne Wiest's character in Parenthood.

Parenthood grossed over $126 million and received two Oscar nominations, one of her most successful movie appearances since The Goonies.

Plimpton appeared in the Robert De Niro-Jane Fonda 1990 romantic drama Stanley & Iris in a supporting role.

She also appeared in the 1991 TV movie A Woman At War in the lead role as Helene Moskiewicz.

Plimpton played the starring role of Samantha in the film Samantha (1992).

She appeared as an activist in the independent film Inside Monkey Zetterland released in 1993.

She appeared in the television film Daybreak (1993, HBO).

She appeared in the Showtime television film Chantilly Lace.

She had a featured role in the film Josh and S.A.M. (1993) as a runaway who takes care of the two boys.

She has also received three Tony Award nominations, as well as a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2002, and again in 2012 as attorney Patti Nyholm in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife, the latter of which she won.

Plimpton was born in New York City.

She is the daughter of actors Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton.

Her parents met while performing in the original Broadway run of Hair.

Her paternal grandfather was actor John Carradine.

She is an eighth cousin once removed of writer and editor George Plimpton.

She is also related to cartoonist Bill Plympton, despite the different spelling.

She attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.

Her first stage appearance was when her mother brought her on stage in costume for the curtain call of the short-lived Broadway play The Leaf People then another play in The Ass and the Heart.

She is recognized on Broadway for her roles in The Coast of Utopia (2006–2007), Shining City (2006–2007), Top Girls (2007–2008), and Pal Joey (2008–2009).

Other theatre productions in which she has performed include The Playboy of the Western World, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Glass Menagerie, The Sisters Rosensweig, and Uncle Vanya.

She returned to Broadway in the fall of 2014 in a revival of A Delicate Balance, and starred in the ABC sitcom The Real O'Neals from March 2016 to March 2017.

She played Virginia Chance in the Fox sitcom Raising Hope, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.