| Marcia Gay Harden | |
|---|---|
.jpg/440px-Marcia_Gay_Harden_2013_(cropped).jpg) Harden at the Frozen premiere in 2013 | |
| Born | August 14, 1959 La Jolla, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | University of Texas, Austin (BA) New York University (MFA) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1979–present |
| Spouse(s) | Thaddaeus Scheel (m. 1996; div. 2012) |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | theofficialmarciagayharden |
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Marcia Gay Harden (born August 14, 1959)[1] is an American actress. Her film breakthrough was in the 1990 Coen brothers-directed Miller's Crossing. She followed this with roles in films including Used People (1992), The First Wives Club (1996), and Flubber (1997). For her performance as artist Lee Krasner in the 2000 film Pollock, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She earned another Academy Award nomination for her performance as Celeste Boyle in Mystic River (2003). Her other notable film roles include American Gun (2005) and 2007's The Mist and Into the Wild.
Harden made her Broadway debut in 1993, starring in Angels in America, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. She returned to Broadway in 2009 as Veronica in God of Carnage. Her performance won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Harden was nominated for her second Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the 2009 television film The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler. Harden's other notable television roles include Dr Leanne Rorish in the CBS medical drama Code Black and attorney Rebecca Halliday in the HBO Aaron Sorkin series The Newsroom.
Early life and education[edit]
Harden was born in La Jolla, California, the daughter of Texas natives Beverly Harden (née Bushfield), a housewife, and Thad Harold Harden (1932–2002), who was an officer in the United States Navy.[2] She has three sisters and one brother.
Harden's brother is named Thaddeus, as are her father and her former husband. Harden's family frequently moved because of her father's job, living in Japan, Germany, Greece, California, and Maryland.[3]
In 1976, Harden graduated from Surrattsville High School in Clinton, Maryland. In 1980, she received a bachelor of arts in theatre from the University of Texas at Austin. In 1988, Harden received a master of fine arts from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[4]
Career[edit]
Harden's first film role was in a 1979 student-produced movie at the University of Texas. Throughout the 1980s, she appeared in several television programs, including Simon & Simon, Kojak, and CBS Summer Playhouse. She appeared in The Imagemaker (1986), her first movie screen role, in which she played a stage manager. She appeared in the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990), a 1930s mobster drama in which she first gained wide exposure. Even so, at the time, living in New York City, she had to go back to doing catering jobs "because I didn't have any money".[5]
In 1992, Harden played actress Ava Gardner alongside Philip Casnoff as Frank Sinatra in the made-for-TV miniseries Sinatra. Throughout the 1990s, she continued to appear in films and television. Her notable film roles include the Disney sci-fi comedy Flubber (1997), a popular hit in which she co-starred with Robin Williams; the supernatural drama Meet Joe Black (1998), playing the under-appreciated daughter of a tycoon (Anthony Hopkins, co-starring Brad Pitt); Labor of Love (1998), a Lifetime television movie in which she starred with David Marshall Grant; and Space Cowboys (2000), an all-star adventure-drama about aging astronauts.
Harden was awarded the 2000 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of painter Lee Krasner in Pollock (2000). In 2003, she was again nominated in the same category for Mystic River.
Harden guest-starred as FBI undercover agent Dana Lewis posing as a white supremacist in "Raw", an episode of the popular crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 2007, this role earned Harden her first Emmy Award nomination for best guest actress in a drama series. She reprised the role in the series' eighth-season premiere and again in the 12th-season episode "Penetration" as a rape victim (aired November 10, 2010).
In 2007, Harden appeared in several films, including Sean Penn's Into the Wild and Frank Darabont's The Mist (opposite Thomas Jane and Laurie Holden), based on the novella by Stephen King. Also in 2007, she shared top billing with Kevin Bacon in Rails & Ties, the directorial debut of Alison Eastwood. In 2008, Harden appeared in Home playing a woman who has had a mastectomy. (Her character in Rails & Ties also had a mastectomy.) One central scene called for her to bare her breasts, with the missing breast "removed" using computer-generated imagery. In Home, her co-stars include her daughter, Eulala Scheel. Harden starred in the Christmas Cottage, a story of the early artistic beginnings of the Painter of Light, Thomas Kinkade.
In 2009, she appeared as a regular on the FX series Damages as a shrewd corporate attorney opposite Glenn Close and William Hurt. Harden received a 2009 Emmy nomination for her role in The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, a TV film also starring Oscar-winner Anna Paquin. She was a Best Supporting Actress in a TV Movie/Miniseries nominee and lost to Shohreh Aghdashloo. If she had won this Emmy, Harden would have entered the elite group of "triple-crown" actors; those who have won the profession's three highest honors - the Academy Award (film), the Tony Award (stage), and the Emmy Award (television).
In 2009, Harden co-starred with Elliot Page and Drew Barrymore in Whip It, which proved a critical success.[6] Harden also played in the comedy The Maiden Heist (2009) with Christopher Walken and Morgan Freeman.
In 2013, Harden reunited with her former Broadway co-star Jeff Daniels as a new cast member on HBO's series The Newsroom.[5] From 2015 to 2018, she played Christian Grey's mother, Grace Trevelyan Grey, in the Fifty Shades film series. Also in 2015, she began a starring role in the TV series Code Black.
Theater[edit]
In 1993, Harden debuted on Broadway in the role of Harper Pitt (and others) in Tony Kushner's Angels in America. The role earned her critical acclaim, and she received a Tony Award nomination (Best Featured Actress in a Play). The winner in that category was Debra Monk in Redwood Curtain.
In 2009, Harden returned to Broadway in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, where she co-starred with James Gandolfini, Hope Davis, and Jeff Daniels.[7] All three actors were nominated for the Tony Award, and at the ceremony on June 8, Harden won Best Actress in a Play.[8]
Personal life[edit]
Harden married Thaddaeus Scheel, a prop master, with whom she worked on The Spitfire Grill, in 1996.[5] Harden and Scheel have three children: a daughter, Eulala Grace Scheel (born September 1998), and twins Julitta Dee Scheel and Hudson Harden Scheel (born April 22, 2004).[9] In February 2012, Harden filed for divorce from Scheel.[10]
Harden has owned a property in the Catskills and a townhouse in Harlem.[11][12][13] She sold the Harlem townhouse in 2012.[14]
Harden is an avid potter, which she learned in high school, and then took up again while acting in Angels in America.[15][11]
Harden is a practitioner of ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arrangement, which her mother learned while they lived in Japan.[16] She gave a brief demonstration in 2007 on The Martha Stewart Show and presented some works of her family, as well.[17] In May 2018, a memoir called The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Flowers was published. The book details the story and bond of mother and daughter throughout time and how they are dealing with the largest struggle yet, her mother's Alzheimer's disease. Harden created works of ikebana specifically for this book to illustrate the different seasons of her mother's life.[18][15]
Filmography[edit]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Miller's Crossing | Verna Bernbaum | |
| 1991 | Late for Dinner[19] | Joy Husband | |
| 1991 | In Broad Daylight | Adina Rowan | |
| 1992 | Crush | Lane | |
| 1992 | Used People | Norma | |
| 1994 | Safe Passage | Cynthia | |
| 1996 | The Spitfire Grill | Shelby Goddard | |
| 1996 | The Daytrippers | Libby | |
| 1996 | The First Wives Club | Dr. Leslie Rosen | |
| 1996 | Spy Hard | Miss Cheevus | |
| 1996 | Far Harbor | Arabella | |
| 1997 | Flubber | Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds | |
| 1998 | Desperate Measures | Dr. Samantha Hawkins | |
| 1998 | Meet Joe Black | Allison Parrish | |
| 1998 | Curtain Call | Michelle Tippet | |
| 2000 | Space Cowboys | Sara Holland | |
| 2000 | Pollock | Lee Krasner | Won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress |
| 2001 | Gaudi Afternoon | Frankie Stevens | |
| 2003 | Mystic River | Celeste Boyle | Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress |
| 2003 | Casa de los Babys | Nan | |
| 2003 | Mona Lisa Smile | Nancy Abbey | |
| 2004 | Welcome to Mooseport | Grace Sutherland | |
| 2004 | P.S. | Missy Goldberg | |
| 2005 | Bad News Bears | Liz Whitewood | |
| 2005 | Willa Cather: The Road Is All | Willa Cather | Voice role |
| 2005 | American Gun | Janet Huttenson | |
| 2006 | American Dreamz | First Lady | |
| 2006 | The Dead Girl[20] | Melora | |
| 2006 | The Hoax | Edith Irving | |
| 2006 | Canvas | Mary Marino | |
| 2007 | The Invisible | Diane Powell | |
| 2007 | Into the Wild | Billie McCandless | |
| 2007 | Rails & Ties | Megan Stark | |
| 2007 | The Mist | Mrs. Carmody | |
| 2008 | Home | Inga | |
| 2008 | Thomas Kinkade's Home for Christmas | Maryanne Kinkade | |
| 2009 | The Maiden Heist | Rose | |
| 2009 | Whip It | Brooke Cavendar | |
| 2010 | A Cat in Paris | Jeanne | Voice role |
| 2010 | True Grit | Mattie Ross | Voice role |
| 2011 | Detachment | Principal Carol Dearden | |
| 2011 | Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You | Marjorie Dunfour | |
| 2012 | Noah's Ark: The New Beginning | Aamah | Voice role |
| 2012 | If I Were You | Madelyn | |
| 2013 | The Wine of Summer | Shelley | |
| 2013 | Parkland | Head Nurse Doris Nelson | |
| 2014 | Magic in the Moonlight | Mrs. Baker | |
| 2014 | You're Not You | Elizabeth | |
| 2014 | Elsa & Fred | Lydia Barcroft | |
| 2014 | Unity | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2015 | Grandma | Judy | |
| 2015 | Fifty Shades of Grey | Grace Trevelyan Grey | |
| 2015 | Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant | President of the FAFAFA | |
| 2015 | After Words | Jane Taylor | |
| 2016 | Get a Job | Katherine Dunn | |
| 2017 | Fifty Shades Darker | Grace Trevelyan Grey | |
| 2018 | Fifty Shades Freed | Grace Trevelyan Grey | |
| 2019 | Point Blank | Regina Lewis | |
| 2020 | Pink Skies Ahead | Pamela | |
| 2021 | Moxie | Principal Marlene Shelly |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | CBS Summer Playhouse | Kim | Episode: "In the Lion's Den" |
| 1988 | Simon & Simon | Librarian, Joan | Episode: "Ties That Bind" |
| 1989 | Gideon Oliver | Lila | Episode: "Sleep Well, Professor Oliver" |
| 1991 | In Broad Daylight | Adina Rowan | TV movie |
| 1991 | Fever | Lacy | TV movie |
| 1992 | Sinatra | Ava Gardner | TV movie |
| 1995 | Fallen Angels | Marie | Episode: "Good Housekeeping" |
| 1995 | Chicago Hope | Barbara Tomilson | Episode: "Internal Affairs" |
| 1995 | Great Performances | N/A | Episode: "Talking With" |
| 1995 | Homicide: Life on the Street | Joan Garbarek | Episode: "A Doll's Eyes" |
| 1997 | Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing | Nancy Floyd | TV movie |
| 1998 | Labor of Love | Annie Pines | TV movie |
| 1999 | Spenser: Small Vices | Susan Silverman | TV movie |
| 2000 | Thin Air | Susan Silverman | TV movie |
| 2001 | Walking Shadow | Susan Silverman | TV movie |
| 2002 | Guilty Hearts | Jenny Moran | TV movie |
| 2001 | The Education of Max Bickford | Andrea Haskell | 22 episodes |
| 2002 | King of Texas | Mrs. Susannah Lear Tumlinson | TV movie |
| 2004 | She's Too Young | Trish Vogul | TV movie |
| 2005 | Felicity: An American Girl Adventure | Mrs. Martha Merriman | TV movie |
| 2005–13 | Law & Order: Special Victims Unit | FBI Special Agent Dana Lewis | 4 episodes |
| 2006 | In from the Night | Vicki Miller | TV movie |
| 2008 | The Tower | Zoe Cafritz | TV movie |
| 2008 | Sex and Lies in Sin City | Becky Binion | TV movie |
| 2009 | Damages | Claire Maddox | 7 episodes |
| 2009 | The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler | Janina Kyzyzanowska | TV movie |
| 2010 | Royal Pains | Dr. Elizabeth Blair | 3 episodes |
| 2011 | Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy | Edda Mellas | TV movie |
| 2011 | Innocent | Barbara Sabich | TV movie |
| 2012 | Body of Proof | Sheila Temple | Episode: "Sympathy for the Devil" |
| 2012 | Bent | Vanessa Carter | Episode: "Mom" |
| 2012–13 | Tron: Uprising | Keller | Voice role, Episodes: "State of Mind", "Welcome Home" |
| 2012 | Isabel | Frances Lorenz | TV movie |
| 2013–14 | The Newsroom | Rebecca Halliday | 10 episodes |
| 2013–14 | Trophy Wife | Diane | 22 episodes |
| 2015, 2017, 2020 | How to Get Away with Murder | Hannah Keating | 5 episodes (inc. 2 voice role appearances) |
| 2015–18 | Code Black | Dr. Leanne Rorish | Main role |
| 2019 | Love You to Death | Camile | TV movie |
| 2019 | BoJack Horseman | Denise/McCaitlyn | 2 episodes (voice role) |
| 2019 | The Morning Show | Maggie Brener | 6 episodes |
| 2020 | A Million Little Things | Alice | Episode: "Guilty" |
| 2020 | Barkskins | Mathilde Geffard | Series regular |
| Year | Title | Role | Writer | Venue | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | The Man Who Shot Lincoln | Mary Devlin | Luigi Creatore | Astor Place Theatre | New York, US |
| 1992–1993 | The Years | Isabella | Cindy Lou Johnson | New York City Center-Stage I | |
| 1993–1994 | Angels in America: Perestroika | Harper Pitt | Tony Kushner | Walter Kerr Theatre | |
| 1993–1994 | Angels in America: Millennium Approaches | Harper Pitt, Martin Heller | Tony Kushner | Walter Kerr Theatre | |
| 1994 | Simpatico | Cecilia | Sam Shepard | The Public Theater-Newman Theater | |
| 2001 | The Seagull | Masha | Anton Chekhov | Delacorte Theater | |
| 2002 | The Exonerated | N/A | Jessica Blank, Erik Jensen | Lynn Redgrave Theater | |
| 2009 | God of Carnage | Veronica | Yasmina Reza | Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre | |
| 2017 | Sweet Bird of Youth'[21] | Alexandra del Lago | Tennessee Williams | Chichester Festival Theatre | Chichester, England |
Awards and nominations[edit]
Bibliography[edit]
- Harden, Marcia Gay (2018). The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Flowers. New York: Atria Books. ISBN 978-1-5011-3572-9. OCLC 1027733089.
References[edit]
- ^ "The Year I Turned..." People. 72 (23). December 2, 2009.
- ^ "Thad Harold Harden". Variety. March 1, 2002. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
- ^ Pfefferman, Naomi (February 15, 2001). "Strange Attraction". The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
- ^ "NYU Graduate Acting Alumni". 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
- ^ a b c Goldman, Andrew (July 5, 2013). "What Marcia Gay Harden Knows About Trophy Wives". The New York Times.
- ^ "Whip It Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 2010-05-26. Retrieved 2010-08-17.
- ^ Davis, Hope (July 13, 2012). "Marcia Gay Harden Stands Strong". Hamptons.
- ^ Hetrick, Adam (January 12, 2011). "Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis to Reunite for God of Carnage in Los Angeles". Playbill. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
- ^ Armstrong, Mark (April 27, 2004). "Marcia Gay Harden Welcomes Babies". People.
- ^ "Marcia Gay Harden Files for Divorce". People. February 16, 2012. Retrieved 2012-02-16.
- ^ a b Dweck, Sophie (January 25, 2019). "Marcia Gay Harden: 25 Things You Don't Know About Me ('I Love Camping in National Parks')". Us Weekly.
- ^ Capuzzo, Jill P. (September 14, 2007). "Between Film Sets, Life on Gossamer Lake". The New York Times.
- ^ Leon, Anya (December 10, 2009). "Marcia Gay Harden Embraces City Life With Her Family". People.
- ^ Velsey, Kim (May 28, 2012). "Marcia Gay Harden Sells Harlem Brownstone". The Observer. London.
- ^ a b King, Larry; Harden, Marcia Gay (May 11, 2018). "Marcia Gay Harden on Alzheimer's, 'Fifty Shades,' & her new book" (Video interview). Larry King Now. Ora TV.
- ^ Hoban, Mary Kate (March 28, 2017). "'Code Black' Star Marcia Gay Harden On Alzheimer's Disease". Elite Daily. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-10-02. Retrieved 2017-06-28.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ^ Harden, Marcia Gay (May 1, 2018). The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Flowers. New York: Simon and Shuster. ISBN 978-1-5011-3572-9.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (September 20, 1991). "Late For Dinner". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved August 9, 2020 – via RogerEbert.com.
- ^ Finn, Robin (December 22, 2006). "The Down-to-Earth Act? It's for Real". The New York Times.
- ^ Armitstead, Claire (May 22, 2017). "Diamond dame: Marcia Gay Harden on hellish roles, washed-up stars and nipple clamp tweets". The Guardian. London.
External links[edit]
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marcia Gay Harden. |
- Official website
- Marcia Gay Harden at IMDb
- Marcia Gay Harden at the Internet Broadway Database
- Marcia Gay Harden at Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Marcia Gay Harden on Twitter
- Marcia Gay Harden 2006 Interview on Sidewalks Entertainment
