Mary-Louise Parker (born August 2, 1964 in Fort Jackson, South Carolina) is an American actress whose work within theater and film has won her international acclaim. She has been a recipient of prestigious awards like a Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe awards. Her right-known works include Boys on the Side, Proof, The West Wing, Angels in America. & her todays role in Showtime's Weeds.

Her Early Work
Acting was always her passion & she graduated from either a North Carolina School of the Arts with acting as her major. She so had her beginside in a bit partially on the laundry soap opera Ryan's Hope.

In the late '80s, Parker travelled to New York where she got the job with measurements of feet at Ecco. Fallowing two or three bit part, she processed her Broadway debut in the 1990 production of Craig Lucas's Prelude to a Kiss, playing a independent role of Rita. For her performance she won a Clarence Derwent Award and was nominated for the Tony award. Parker too briefly dated her co-star Timothy Hutton. Notwithstanding, after the play was processed into a film, Meg Ryan took over Parker's role.

That equivalent month, Parker was found by critics worldwide whilst she appeared in a film adaptation of an additional Craig Lucas play, the poignant Longtime Companion, one of the number 1 flick to truly treat by having AIDS. This role was followed by her appearance inside Fried Green Tomatoes in 1991 alongside Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson and Kathy Bates.

The 1990s

Parker maintained the hard theater presence in the early Nineties, however as well maintained her reputation on the large screen, starring by using Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in The Client (1994); with John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway (1994); and then swimming an Helps sufferer within Boys on the Side (1995), with Drew Barrymore and Whoopi Goldberg. She followed this higher by owning the picture adaptation of eventually a second Craig Lucas play, Reckless (1995), alongside Mia Farrow and then in Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady (1996) which also starred Nicole Kidman, Viggo Mortensen, Christian Bale, John Malkovich and Barbara Hershey. Around 1997, she appeared alongside Matthew Modine in Tim Hunter's The Maker.

Parker did non get an instant domestic title, however like the darling of the critics. Her theater career continued to flourish after she appeared inside Paula Vogel's 1997 critical smash How I Learned To Drive, with David Morse. Fallowing many independent film releases, she appeared inside Let The Devil Wear Black and then a tremendously-lauded role around 1999's The Five Senses.

2001 - 2003
Around 2001, Parker appeared alongside Len Cariou and Anne Heche in David Auburn's Proof in Broadway, and among a praise showered on her was a tremendously-coveted Tony award. But, Parker over again misplaced out once a play was manufactured into a film & the role was given to Gwyneth Paltrow. However whatever her theatrical aspirations, she would leave a stage for threesome years when her profile soared & she incurred roles wherever she browsed: among a babies, the Silence of the Lambs prequel Red Dragon and Pipe Dream (2002).

Next higher was the guest role on the Rob Lowe/Martin Sheen NBC drama, The West Wing, as women's rights activist Amelia 'Amy' Gardner, which soon became a recurring role. Beginning within 2001, her character became Chief of Staff to the First Lady , became the love interest for neurotic Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman, & provided a second female voice inside a indicate publicly criticised for its want of high-level political women. For this role, Parker was nominated for an Emmy, & the Screen Actors Guild award. Around a fifth year Parker became pregnant and her character was written out of a series when 5 episodes of the fifth year. She was late to link to inside 2005.

Around November 2003, she split with long-instance beau Billy Crudup, after the septenary month relationship which began whilst it met within the 1996 theater reprisal of the Marilyn Monroe film Bus Stop.

In December 7 2003, HBO aired what would become the large event of the season around television: an larger-than-life six-&-a-half hour adaptation of Tony Kushner's acclaimed Broadway play Angels in America, directed by Mike Nichols. a miniseries - all about a class action of wasted humans within Up to date York in the period of the Helps epidemic of the '80s - was internationally acclaimed. Parker played Harper Pitt, a valium-addicted married woman of a closeted attorney, & - among its numbers of awards - Parker received the Golden Globe and Emmy awards for Best Supporting Actress inside the Miniseries. In January 7 2004 - two months fallowing her split from either Billy Crudup - Parker gave birth to the fit infant son, William Atticus.

2004 and on...

Within 2004, Parker appeared in the black comedy Saved!, and the TV moving picture known as Miracle Run based on the avowedly story of the mother sustaining deuce autistic sons, too when appearing inside Craig Lucas's Reckless in Broadway. Parker took a lead role that experienced been Mia Farrow's on screen. a production, directed by Mark Brokaw, was critically acclaimed in the period of its start & earned Parker a nomination for a second Tony award for Better Actress at the 2005 ceremony.

Around 2005, Parker reprised her West Wing role for one episode. She as well starred sustaining Tom Skerritt in the CBS television film Vinegar Hill as a down-on-her-luck school teacher world health organization, using her personal, moves inside sustaining her witharound-relative-in-law merely to discover their bitterly, loveless relationship; & in John Turturro's Romance & Cigarettes.

Parker presently plays a lead role on the fresh black comedy television series, Weeds, which airs on Showtime. Parker plays a suburban mother world health organization, resulting the demise of her married man, decides to sell marijuana to make money, when likewise attempting to maintain her profile in the community. Her Angels in America co-star Justin Kirk, and Elizabeth Perkins also star. A foremost year finished in October 10, with there are no word eventually announced in whether a indicate is renewed.

Parker is presently filming The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, an Andrew Dominik film starring Casey Affleck, Robert Duvall and Garret Dillahunt. She'll reportedly exist as swimming Zerelda Mimms.

Selected Filmography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2006) – Zerelda Mimms Weeds (2005) (TV series) – Nancy Botwin Romance & Cigarettes (2005) – Constance Saved! (2004) – Lillian Angels in America (2003) – Harper Amaty Pitt Red Dragon (2002) – Molly Graham The Portrait of a Lady (1996) – Henrietta Stackpole Boys on the Side (1995) – Robin Bullets Over Broadway (1994) – Ellen The Client (1994) – Dianne Sway Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) – Ruth Jamison Grand Canyon (1991) – Dee Longtime Companion (1990) – Lisa ''Ryan's Hope (1975) (TV series)

Awards

1990 - Tony award nomination, for Prelude to a Kiss

2000 - Genie award nomination, for The Five Senses

2001 - Tony award winner, for Proof

2002 - Emmy award nominee for Great Supporting Actress inside the Drama Series, for The West Wing

2003 - Screen Actors Guild Award nominee for Spectacular Performance by an Ensemble inside the Drama Series, for The West Wing

2004 - Screen Actors Guild Award nominee for Great Performance by the Female Actor inside the Miniseries, for Angels around America

2004 - Golden Satellite Award candidate for Right Performance by an Supporting Actress inside the Miniseries, for Angels around America

2004 - Golden Earth Award Winner for Better Performance by the Supporting Actress within the Miniseries, for Angels inside America

2004 - Emmy Award Winner for even Spectacular Supporting Actress around the Miniseries or Motion picture, for Angels inside America

2005 - Tony award campaigner, for Reckless''

Trivia

Appeared inside the Bonnie Raitt music video entitled You Got It.

The song entitled Butterfly in Reverse by the band Counting Crows was written for her.

Standard 'Favorite Thanks' credits for Wet Hot American Summer and Pieces of April.

At a 2004 Golden Globes, Parker was dared by fellow West Wing cast member Janel Moloney to thank her newborn son for a sweetening of her breasts & profile, whenever she won the award for Angels within Usa. Parker did win, & did indeed make out, winning $1000 from either Moloney.