Mary-Louise Parker

Mary-Louise Parker (born August 2, 1964) is an American actress.

In the late 1980s, Parker moved to New York.

Parker majored in drama at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and graduated in 1986.

Parker got her start in acting with a role on the soap opera Ryan's Hope.

In 1989 she was in the film Longtime Companion, a film starring Campbell Scott, Bruce Davison and Dermot Mulroney about the emergence and devastation of the AIDS epidemic.

After making her Broadway debut as Rita in Craig Lucas' Prelude to a Kiss in 1990 (for which she received a Tony Award nomination), Parker came to prominence for film roles in Grand Canyon (1991), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), The Client (1994), Bullets over Broadway (1994), A Place for Annie (1994), Boys on the Side (1995), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and The Maker (1997).

After a few minor roles, she made her Broadway debut in a production of Craig Lucas' Prelude to a Kiss, playing the lead role of Rita, in 1990.

She moved with the production when it transferred from its origin off-Broadway.

Parker won the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance and was nominated for a Tony Award (although she did not play the role when the film was made).

In the late 1990s, she appeared in several independent films, including Let the Devil Wear Black and The Five Senses.

Parker starred with Kevin Kline in Grand Canyon (1991); with Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Jessica Tandy in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991); with Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in The Client (1994); with John Cusack in Bullets over Broadway (1994); and with Drew Barrymore and Whoopi Goldberg in Boys on the Side (1995), as a woman with AIDS.

Parker's next role was in a movie adaptation of another Craig Lucas play, Reckless (1995), alongside Mia Farrow, followed by Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady (1996), which also starred Nicole Kidman, Viggo Mortensen, Christian Bale, John Malkovich and Barbara Hershey.

In addition, she appeared alongside Matthew Modine in Tim Hunter's The Maker (1997).

Parker's theater career continued when she appeared off-Broadway in Paula Vogel's 1997 critical smash How I Learned to Drive, with David Morse.

She received the 1997 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Actress, and 1997 Obie Award, Performance for her performance.

She starred alongside Sidney Poitier in the 1999 movie The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn.

From 2000 to 2001, Parker starred in the play Proof in off-Broadway and Broadway productions, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the latter.

Among stage and independent film appearances thereafter, Parker received the 2001 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Catherine Llewellyn in David Auburn's Proof, among other accolades.

Between 2001 and 2006, she recurred as Amy Gardner in the NBC television series The West Wing, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2002.

She received both a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Harper Pitt in the acclaimed HBO television miniseries Angels in America in 2003.

On December 7, 2003, HBO aired a six-and-a-half-hour adaptation of Tony Kushner's acclaimed Broadway play Angels in America, directed by Mike Nichols.

Parker played Harper Pitt, the Mormon, Valium-addicted wife of a closeted lawyer.

For her performance, Parker received the Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award, both for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.

In 2004, Parker appeared in the comedy Saved! and a television film called Miracle Run, based on the true story of a mother of two sons with autism, as well as appearing in the lead role in Craig Lucas' Reckless on Broadway.

Parker went on to enjoy large success as Nancy Botwin, the lead character in the television series Weeds, which ran from 2005 to 2012 and for which she received three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series between 2007 and 2009 and received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2006.

The production, directed by Mark Brokaw, earned Parker another nomination for a Tony Award for Best Actress in 2005.

In November 2005, Parker was the subject of a career exhibition at Boston University, where memorabilia from her career were donated to the university's library.

In 2006, Parker received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy, given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, for her lead role in Weeds.

In that category, she defeated the four leads of Desperate Housewives.

She dedicated the award to the late John Spencer, known for his work as Leo McGarry on The West Wing.

After receiving the award, Parker stated: "I'm really in favor of legalizing marijuana. I don't think it's that controversial."

Since 2007, Parker has contributed articles to Esquire magazine and published her memoir, Dear Mr. You, in 2015.

Her later film appearances include roles in The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008), Red (2010), R.I.P.D. (2013), and Red 2 (2013).

In 2017, she starred as Roma Guy on the ABC television miniseries When We Rise.

Parker was born in Columbia, South Carolina, the youngest of four children, to Caroline Louise (née Morell) and John Morgan Parker, a judge who served in the U.S. Army.

Because of her father's career, Parker spent parts of her childhood in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, as well as in Thailand, Germany, and France.

She described her childhood as "profoundly unhappy", noting that, "My parents did everything they could; I had books, clothes, a home and a warm bed, but I was never happy."

She graduated from Marcos de Niza High School in Tempe, Arizona.

Parker returned to Broadway in 2019 to star in The Sound Inside, for which she won her second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

In 2022, she reprised the role of Li'l Bit, which she had originated off-Broadway in 1997, in How I Learned to Drive on Broadway, a performance which earned Parker her fifth Tony nomination.