Frances Louise McDormand is an American actress.
She has won an Academy Award and a Tony Award.
She married director and writer Joel Coen in 1984 and has starred in several of the
Coen brothers' films, including Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo, which won her the
Academy Award for Best Actress, The Man Who Wasn't There, Burn After Reading.
McDormand is also a three-time nominee of the Academy Award For Best Supporting Actress
for her performances in Mississippi Burning, Almost Famous and North Country.
Her other films include Short Cuts, Primal Fear, Wonder Boys and Something's Gotta Give.
She has also been nominated for four Golden Globes, three BAFTA Awards, and an Emmy Award.
She made her Broadway debut in 1984 in the play Awake and Sing.
In 1988, she was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance as Stella Kowalski in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
She returned to Broadway for the first time in twenty years in 2008 to star in the revival
of The Country Girl and received a Drama Desk nomination.
In 2011, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance as Margi Walsh
in Good People.
Early life McDormand was born in Chicago, Illinois, and
was adopted by a Canadian-born couple – Noreen E., a registered nurse and receptionist, and
Vernon W. McDormand, a Disciples of Christ pastor.
She has said that her biological mother may have been one of the parishioners at Vernon's
church.
She has a sister, Dorothy A. McDormand, who is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister
and chaplain, as well as another sibling, both of whom were adopted by the McDormands,
who had no biological children.
As her father specialized in restoring congregations, he frequently moved their family, and they
lived in several small towns in Illinois, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, before settling
in Monessen, Pennsylvania, where she graduated from Monessen High School in 1975.
McDormand attended Bethany College in West Virginia, earning a Bachelor of Arts in theater
in 1979.
In 1982, she earned an Master of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama.
She was a roommate of Holly Hunter at the time.
Her first professional acting job was in Trinidad and Tobago, performing in a play written by
Derek Walcott and funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
Career McDormand's film debut was in the 1984 Coen
brothers first film, Blood Simple.
In 1985, they, Holly Hunter, and director Sam Raimi shared a house in The Bronx.
In 1987, she appeared as the wacky friend Dot in the hit film Raising Arizona, starring
Holly Hunter and Nicolas Cage.
In addition to her early film roles, McDormand played Connie Chapman in the fifth season
of the television police drama Hill Street Blues.
In 1988, she played Stella Kowalski in a stage production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar
Named Desire, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award.
McDormand is an associate member of the experimental theater company The Wooster Group.
McDormand appeared in several theatrical and television roles during the 1980s, 1990s and
2000s.
She has gained renown and critical acclaim for her dramatic work, and is a respected
actress, having been nominated for Academy Awards four times.
In 1988, she was nominated for a Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Mississippi Burning;
in 1996, she won the Academy award for Best Actress for her performance as police chief
Marge Gunderson in Fargo; in 2000, she earned her third nomination for Best Actress in a
Supporting Role for her portrayal of an overbearing mother in Almost Famous.
Also for Almost Famous, she won the Best Supporting Actress nomination from the Broadcast Film
Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics Association, Los Angeles Film Critics Association,
San Diego Film Critics Society, Southeastern Film Critics Association, and the Florida
Film Critics Circle.
For her role in Wonder Boys, she won Best Supporting Actress from the Broadcast Film
Critics Association, the Florida Film Critics Circle, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
In 2006, McDormand received her fourth nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actress for her performance in 2005's North Country, although she lost to Rachel Weisz.
She also had a role in the film Friends with Money, a dark comedy co-starring Jennifer
Aniston, Catherine Keener, and Joan Cusack, and directed by Nicole Holofcener.
She received an Independent Spirit Award for her role in Friends with Money.
She also voiced the role of the lady principal Melanie Upfoot in the Simpsons episode "Girls
Just Want to Have Sums", which aired on April 30, 2006.
McDormand has recently starred in the films Burn After Reading and Miss Pettigrew Lives
for a Day.
McDormand starred in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the sequel after Transformers: Revenge
of the Fallen.
She played the US government's National Intelligence Director, alongside Burn After Reading co-star
John Malkovich.
She returned to the stage in the David Lindsay-Abaire play Good People, in a limited engagement
on Broadway from February 8, 2011 to May 29, 2011.
Her performance earned her a Tony Award win for Best Leading Actress in a Play.
In the animated film Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, she voiced Capitain Chantal Dubois
and also sang a version of the French song "Non, je ne regrette rien".
She also starred in Promised Land with Matt Damon, filmed in April 2012 and released on
December 28, 2012.
Personal life McDormand has been married to director Joel
Coen since 1984, and the two adopted a son from Paraguay, Pedro McDormand Coen, in 1994.
They live in New York City.
Filmography Film
Television References
External links Frances McDormand at the Internet Movie Database
Frances McDormand at the Internet Broadway Database
Frances McDormand at the Internet Off-Broadway Database