Mercedes J. Ruehl is an American theater, television, and film actress.
She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1992 for The
Fisher King and a Tony Award for her performance in Lost in Yonkers in 1991.
Personal life Ruehl was born in Jackson Heights,
Queens, New York City, the daughter of Mercedes J. Ruehl, a school teacher, and
Vincent Ruehl, an FBI agent. She was raised Catholic. Her father was of
German and Irish descent and her mother was of Cuban and Irish ancestry. Ruehl
attended College of New Rochelle and graduated in 1969. She is married to
painter David Geiser, with whom she adopted a son, Jake. She had another
son, Christopher, whom she placed in adoption in 1976; he later became Jake's
godfather. Her brother, Peter Ruehl, moved to
Australia in 1987 where he was a popular newspaper columnist until his death in
2011. Career
Ruehl began her career in regional theatre with the Denver Center Theatre
Company, taking odd jobs between engagements. Her first starring role on
Broadway came in 1984's I'm Not Rappaport. She then went on to win the
1984 Obie Award for her performance in The Marriage of Bette and Boo and twenty
years later, an Obie for Woman Before a Glass. She also received a 1991 Tony
Award as Best Actress for Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers and continued her role
in the show during its tour with co-star Mercedes McCambridge. Her performances
in two other plays earned her two other Tony nominations: in 1995, as Best
Actress for a revival of The Shadow Box; and in 2002, as Best Actress for Edward
Albee's The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?. Her most acclaimed film role was in The
Fisher King; her performance in the film earned her the 1991 Academy Award for
Best Supporting Actress as well as an American Comedy Award, a Boston Society
of Film Critics Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, and a
Golden Globe. Earlier she had won the 1989 National Society of Film Critics
Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Married to the Mob.
She played KACL station manager Kate Costas in five episodes of Frasier, and
had a major role in the made-for-TV film All-American Girl: The Mary Kay
Letourneau Story. She is the first Cuban American female Academy Award winner. In
2005, she received the Rita Moreno HOLA Award for Excellence from the Hispanic
Organization of Latin Actors. She later played the mother of main character
Vincent Chase in HBO's Entourage. In 2009, Ruehl returned to the Broadway
stage in Manhattan Theater Club's production of Richard Greenberg's The
American Plan playing the role of Eva Adler. The production opened at the
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and the limited engagement ran From January 22
until March 22. In his rave review in The New York Times, Ben Brantley called
Ruehl's performance "masterly". Ruehl next appeared in the drama/horror film
What Ever Happened to Barker Daniels?, which was released in 2009. In January
2012, Ruehl starred in Sarah Treem's play The How and The Why, directed by
Emily Mann at McCarter Theatre of Princeton University.
Music Though not a singer herself, Ruehl was
involved in the production of the album Haunted by Poe; she also reads passages
from the book House of Leaves by Poe's brother Mark Z. Danielewski on the CD
Don't be Scared, issued to cross-promote both projects.
Filmography = Film=
= Television= = Theater=
References External links
Mercedes Ruehl at the Internet Broadway Database
Mercedes Ruehl at the Internet Movie Database
Ruehl Rules, a May 2005 Playbill article Brief Encounter with Mercedes Ruehl, a
May 2002 Playbill interview