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Blythe Danner is a prolific United States|American
actor|actress who has appeared in numerous
theater|stage, television|screen, and film roles.

She was born Blythe Katherine Danner on February
3, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the
daughter of a bank executive. She has two
brothers, opera singer/actor Harry Danner and
violin maker William Danner. She attended the
private George School, in Newtown, Bucks County,
Pennsylvania|Newtown, Pennsylvania, and Bard
College, from where she graduated in 1965. She
holds three honorary doctorates of fine arts from
Bard, Williams College, and Hobart and William
Smith Colleges|Hobart. 

==Acting career==
Danner first appeared on stage with the Theater
Company of Boston and the Trinity Square Playhouse
of Boston, and first gained national attention at
age 25 by winning the Theatre World Award for her
performance in the Lincoln Center Rep's production
of The Miser. She went on to win a Tony Award in
1970 for her Broadway theatre|Broadway debut in
Butterflies Are Free, playing the role later
portrayed by Goldie Hawn in the film adaptation.
The same year she appeared in her first film role,
in a television production of Dr. Cook's Garden.
She also received Tony nominations in 1980 for the
original Broadway production of Harold Pinter's
Betrayal, in 1988 for a revival of the Pulitzer
Prize for Drama|Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A
Streetcar Named Desire, and again in 2001 for a
revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. Danner was
a close friend of actor Christopher Reeve and
appeared with him in several plays.

Due to Danner's WASPy apearance and husky voice,
she most frequently is cast as a middle class or
upper class wife, or more lately, matriarch;
although in 1986 in Brighton Beach Memoirs, she
portrayed a middle-aged Jewish woman, and in 1982
in the TV movie  Inside the Third Reich, she
played the wife of Albert Speer. Her earliest
starring film roles were opposite Alan Alda in To
Kill a Clown (1972 in film|1972) and in the title
role of Lovin' Molly (1974 in film|1974), directed
by Sidney Lumet.  She has appeared in two films
based on the novels of Pat Conroy, The Great
Santini (1979 in film|1979) and The Prince of
Tides (1991 in film|1991), as well as two
television movies adapted from books by Anne
Tyler, Saint Maybe and Back When We Were Grownups,
both for the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Danner is more
recently known for her role opposite Robert De
Niro in the comedy hit Meet the Parents (2000 in
film|2000) and its (2004 in film|2004) sequel,
Meet the Fockers (with Barbra Streisand and Dustin
Hoffman), and for her work in 2004 in the cable TV
series Huff (TV series)|Huff. Since 2001, she has
regularly guest starred on Will and Grace as Will
Truman|Will's mother Supporting characters on Will
& Grace#Will's Family|Marilyn. For twenty-five
years, she has been a regular performer at the
Williamstown Summer Theater Festival, where she
also serves on the Board of Directors.

==Personal life== 
She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and
actor Jake Paltrow, and the widow of producer
Bruce Paltrow.  Danner first co-starred with her
daughter in 1992 in the TV movie Cruel Doubt, then
again in the 2003 in film|2003 film Sylvia
(movie)|Sylvia, playing the mother of the title
character, played by her daughter. 

She is also the aunt of actresses Hillary Danner
and Katherine Moennig, and sister-in-law (through
brother Harry) of opera director Dorothy Danner.

Although she has worked frequently on TV and on
stage, Danner put her film career on hold for a
number of years to raise her children. She often
said the proudest night of her life was when
Gwyneth won an Academy Award|Oscar for best
actress, and her mother was the first person she
thanked.

==Environmental activism==
In addition to her acting work, Blythe Danner has
been involved with environmental issues such as
recycling and conservation for over 30 years,
having seen firsthand the contrast between her
rural youth and her later residence in Los
Angeles, California|Los Angeles and New York. She
has been active with INFORM, is on the Board of
Environmental Activists and the Board of Directors
of the Environmental Media Association, and won
the 2002 EMA Board of Directors Ongoing Commitment
Award. She was instrumental in implementing
curbside recycling in Santa Monica and in
retaining the New York, New York|New York City
recycling program despite threatened budget cuts
in 1991, has driven an electric car since the
first General Motors EV1 was available, and has
installed solar panels at her house. In 2002
Danner, her husband Bruce Paltrow, and her
daughter Gwyneth Paltrow worked together on a
series of PSAs encouraging use of alternative
energy sources and alternative fuel vehicles.
Blythe Danner recently announced that she plans to
take up skydiving.

==Filmography==
*1776 (1972) 
*To Kill a Clown (1972)
*Lovin' Molly (1974) 
*Hearts of the West (1975)
*Futureworld (1976)
*The Great Santini (1979) 
*Man, Woman and Child (1983)
*Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)
*Another Woman (1988)
*Alice (1990)
*Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990)
*The Prince of Tides (1991)
*Husbands and Wives (1992)
*To Wong Foo: Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar
(1995)
*Homage (1995)
*The Myth of Fingerprints (1997)
*Mad City (1997)
*The Farmhouse (1998)
*The Proposition (1998)
*No Looking Back (1998)
*The X-Files (1998)
*Forces of Nature (1999)
*The Love Letter (1999)
*Meet the Parents (2000)
*The Invisible Circus (2001)
*3 Days of Rain (2002)
*The Quality of Light (2003)
*Sylvia (2003)
*Meet the Fockers (2004)

==Television appearances==

*Dr. Cook's Garden (1970) 
*Adam's Rib (1973)
*F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Last of the Belles
(1974) 
*Inside the Third Reich (1982)
*Tattinger's (1988) 
*Nick and Hillary (1989)
*Cruel Doubt (1992)
*Huff (2004)
*St. Elsewhere
*Presidio Med
*Will & Grace (in recurring role as Will's mother)
*The Seagull
*Candida
*A Call to Remember
*Saint Maybe
*We Were the Mulvaneys
*Back When We Were Grownups
*M*A*S*H

==Theater credits==
*The Miser (1968)
*Butterflies Are Free (1970)
*Betrayal (1980)
*A Streetcar Named Desire (1988)
*Follies (2001)
*Much Ado About Nothing

==External links==

*imdb name|id=0001100|name=Blythe Danner
*http://www.playbill.com/celebritybuzz/whoswho/bio
graphy/9756.html Stage biography from Playbill
website
*http://www.ema-online.org/greenlight_2003_spring_
in_focus.htm 2003 article from the Environmental
Media Association
*http://hometown.aol.com/dannerfan/index.html
Unabashedly Blythe, a fan website