Mary Louise Parker

Mary Louise Parker started her life in the South. She was born, and grew up in, South Carolina. She was born in August of 1964, and was the youngest in her family. In her teenage years, she showed very real acting potential. She majored in acting in her college years at the North Carolina School of the Arts. She was very much interested in stage acting, and went to New York to pursue her Broadway dreams.

In the late 1980s, after many less-successful off-Broadway plays, she made her Broadway debut. The play was entitled Prelude to a Kiss, and it premiered in 1990. She won several awards for the play including the Theater World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award, and a nomination for a Tony. She soon became interested in television and film.

Her first successful film was Longtime Companion in which she played a token "hag" in a drama about a group of gay men in the midst of the AIDS drama. She became more popular, however, with her breakout performance in the film Fried Green Tomatoes. She held her own with such greats as Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, and Mary Stuart Masterson.

She became known by many as the "long-suffering girl next door," and entered into many other roles which went along with this tag. She was in films like Grand Canyon, Naked in New York, Bullets over Broadway, Boys on the Side, and Let the Devil Wear Black. She also participated in a few independent films, and she continued to act on Broadway.

Her decision to stay with theater proved very successful for her. She won many awards for her stage work. In 1996, she received many awards and nominations for her role in How I Learned to Drive. In 2000, however, she truly gained the recognition she deserved for her stage acting. She won many awards including a Tony for her work in the play Proof.

Currently she stars in the television shew Weeds, which has earned much critical acclaim. Other television roles include/ have included Amy Gardener in West Wing, for which she earned an Emmy. Her next project is a television show which is called Romance & Cigarettes, in which she will star opposite such greats as James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Winslet.