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Mary-Louise Parker (born August 2, 1964 in Fort
Jackson, South Carolina) is an United
States|American actress whose work in theater and
film has won her international acclaim.  She has
been the recipient of prestigious awards such as
the Tony Award|Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe awards.
Her best-known works include Boys on the Side, The
West Wing (television)|The West Wing, and  Angels
in America. 

==Her Early Work==
Acting was always her passion and she graduated
from the North Carolina School of the Arts with
acting as her major.
She got her start in a bit part on the soap opera
Ryan's Hope.
In the late '80s, she travelled to New York where
she got a job measuring feet at Ecco. After a few
minor roles, she made her Broadway debut in a 1990
production of Craig Lucas's Prelude to a Kiss,
playing the main role of Rita. For her performance
she won the Clarence Derwent Award and was
nominated for a Tony award. She also briefly dated
her co-star Timothy Hutton. However, when the play
was made into a film, Meg Ryan took over Parker's
role.

That same year she was noticed by critics
worldwide when she appeared in the movie
adaptation of another Craig Lucas play, the
poignant Longtime Companion, one of the first
movies to truly deal with AIDS. This role was
followed by her appearance in Fried Green Tomatoes
in 1991 alongside Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart
Masterson and Kathy Bates.

==The 1990s==

Parker maintained a strong theater presence in the
early 1990s, but also maintained her reputation on
the big screen, starring with Susan Sarandon and
Tommy Lee Jones in The Client (1994); with John
Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway (1994); and then
playing an AIDS sufferer in Boys on the Side
(1995), with Drew Barrymore and Whoopi Goldberg.
She followed this up with a movie adaptation of
yet another Craig Lucas play, Reckless (1995),
alongside Mia Farrow and then in Jane Campion's
The Portrait of a Lady_(film)|The Portrait of a
Lady (1996) which also starred Nicole Kidman,
Viggo Mortensen, Christian Bale, John Malkovich
and Barbara Hershey. In 1997, she appeared
alongside Matthew Modine in Tim Hunter's The
Maker.

Parker did not become an instant household name,
but rather a darling of the critics. Her theater
career continued to flourish when she appeared in
Paula Vogel's 1997 critical smash How I Learned To
Drive, with David Morse. After several independent
film releases, she appeared in Let The Devil Wear
Black and then a much-lauded role in 1999's The
Five Senses.

==2001 - 2003==

In 2001, Parker appeared alongside Len Cariou and
Anne Heche in David Auburn's Proof (play)|Proof on
Broadway, and among the praise showered on her was
the much-coveted Tony award. However, Parker again
lost out when the play was made into a film and
the role was given to Gwyneth Paltrow. But
whatever her theatrical aspirations, she would
leave the stage for three years as her profile
soared and she found roles wherever she looked:
among them, the Silence of the Lambs prequel Red
Dragon; a 2002 television movie based on the life
of FBI spy-turned-Soviet Union|Soviet informer,
Robert Hanssen (played by William Hurt); and
playing a struggling screenwriter alongside Martin
Donovan in Pipe Dream (2002).

Next up was a guest role on the Rob Lowe/Martin
Sheen NBC drama, The West Wing (television)|The
West Wing, as women's rights activist Amy
Gardner|Amelia 'Amy' Gardner, which soon became a
recurring role. Beginning in 2001, her character
became Chief of Staff to the First Lady (played by
Stockard Channing), became a love interest for
neurotic Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman
(played by Bradley Whitford), and provided another
female voice in a show publicly criticised for its
lack of high-level political women (with the
exception of Allison Janney's press secretary C.J.
Cregg). For this role, Parker was nominated for an
Emmy, and a Screen Actors Guild award.

However in 2003, after the show's fourth season,
creator and head writer Aaron Sorkin left the show
along with his top director Thomas Schlamme. While
some fans believed that this destroyed the show,
and others enjoyed it, one thing was certain: the
show's style had definitely changed. Around this
time, Parker became pregnant and her character was
written out of the series after five episodes of
the fifth season. She was later to return in 2005.

In November 2003, she split with long-time
boyfriend Billy Crudup, after a seven year
relationship which began when they met in a 1996
theater reprisal of the Marilyn Monroe film Bus
Stop_(movie)|Bus Stop.

On December 7 2003, HBO aired what would become
the biggest event of the year in television: an
epic six-and-a-half hour adaptation of Tony
Kushner's acclaimed Broadway play Angels in
America, directed by Mike Nichols. The miniseries
- about a group of lost souls in New York during
the AIDS epidemic of the '80s - was
internationally acclaimed and starred Meryl
Streep, Al Pacino and Emma Thompson. Parker played
Harper Pitt, the valium-addicted wife of a
closeted lawyer, and - among its many awards -
Parker received the Golden Globe and Emmy awards
for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries. The
joy was added to when, on January 7  2004 - two
months after her split from Billy Crudup - Parker
gave birth to a healthy baby boy, William Atticus.


==2004 and on...==

In 2004, she appeared in the black comedy Saved!,
and a TV movie called Miracle Run based on the
true story of a mother with two autistic sons, as
well as spending time on Broadway, appearing in
Craig Lucas's Reckless. Parker, who had starred in
the film, this time took the lead role that had
been Mia Farrow's on screen. Parker's former role
of Pooty was played by Rosie Perez. The
production, directed by Mark Brokaw, was
critically acclaimed during its run.

In 2005, Parker reprised her West Wing role for
one episode - Freedonia - during what many fans
saw as the creative renaissance of the show, now
focussing on the last year of the Bartlet
administration. In her episode, Parker became the
campaign advisor to Congressman Matthew Santos
(Jimmy Smits). 

She also starred with Tom Skerritt in the CBS
television film Vinegar Hill as a down-on-her-luck
schoolteacher who, with her family, moves in with
her in-laws only to discover their bitter,
loveless relationship; and in John Turturro's
Romance & Cigarettes, which premieres this month.

Parker currently plays the lead role on the new
black comedy television series, Weeds
(television)|Weeds, which airs on Showtime. Parker
plays a suburban mother who, following the death
of her husband, decides to sell cannabis|marijuana
to make money, while also attempting to maintain
her profile in the community. Her Angels in
America co-star Justin Kirk and Elizabeth Perkins
also star. The first season will run for 10
episodes.

==Selected Filmography==
*Weeds (2005 in television|2005) (TV series)
– Nancy Botwin
*Romance & Cigarettes (2005 in film|2005) –
Constance
*Saved! (2004 in film|2004) – Lillian
*Angels in America (2003 in film|2003) –
Harper Amaty Pitt
*Red Dragon (2002 in film|2002) – Molly
Graham
*The Portrait of a Lady (1996 in film|1996)
– Henrietta Stackpole
*Boys on the Side (1995 in film|1995) –
Robin
*Bullets Over Broadway (1994 in film|1994) –
Ellen
*The Client (1994 in film|1994) – Dianne
Sway
*Fried Green Tomatoes (1991 in film|1991) –
Ruth Jamison
*Longtime Companion (1990 in film|1990) –
Lisa
*Ryan's Hope (1975 in television|1975) (TV series)

==Awards==

1990 - Tony award nomination, for Prelude to a
Kiss

2000 - Genie awards|Genie award nomination, for
The Five Senses

2001 - Tony award winner, for Proof

2002 - Emmy award nominee for Outstanding
Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, for The West
Wing

2003 - Screen Actors Guild Award nominee for
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama
Series, for The West Wing

2004 - Screen Actors Guild Award nominee for
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a
Miniseries, for Angels in America

2004 - Golden Satellite Award nominee for Best
Performance by an Supporting Actress in a
Miniseries, for Angels in America

2004 - Golden Globe Award Winner for Best
Performance by a Supporting Actress in a
Miniseries, for Angels in America

2004 - Emmy Award Winner for Outstanding
Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie, for
Angels in America

==Trivia==

Appeared in a Bonnie Raitt music video entitled
You Got It.

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

Received 'Special Thanks' credits for Wet Hot
American Summer and Pieces of April.

At the 2004 Golden Globes, Parker was dared by
fellow West Wing cast member Janel Moloney to
thank her newborn son for the enhancement of her
breasts and profile, if she won the award for
Angels in America. Parker did win, and did indeed
do it, winning $1000 from Moloney.

==See also==
*Amy Gardner|Character arc for her character on
The West Wing

==External links==
*http://www.lyricsdomain.com/3/counting_crows/butt
erfly_in_reverse.html Butterfly in Reverse lyrics
*imdb name|id=0000571|name=Mary-Louise Parker 
*http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show.cgi?sho
w=4 Humourous recaps of The West Wing
*http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Actors_and_Act
resses/Parker__Mary_Louise/ Yahoo! Links directory
*http://www.tvtome.com/WestWing West Wing episode
guide
*http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OnTheSide/
Mary-Louise Parker Discussion