Edith "Edie" Falco is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her roles
as Diane Whittlesey in the HBO series Oz, as Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos,
and as the titular character of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie.
Early life and education Falco was born in Brooklyn, New York, the
daughter of Judith Anderson, an actress, and Frank Falco, a jazz drummer who later worked
for an advertising agency.
Her father was of Italian descent and her mother's ancestry was Swedish and English.
Falco's siblings are Joseph, Paul and Ruth.
Her uncle is novelist, playwright, and poet Edward Falco, an English professor at Virginia
Tech in Blacksburg.
From the age of four she was raised on Long Island, moving with her family to Hicksville,
followed by North Babylon, then West Islip.
As a child she acted in plays at the Arena Players Repertory Theater in East Farmingdale,
where her mother also performed.
Her family eventually moved to Northport, where she attended high school and played
Eliza Doolittle in a production of My Fair Lady during her senior year.
Falco graduated from Northport High School in 1981.
She attended the acting program at SUNY Purchase, along with fellow actors Stanley Tucci and
Ving Rhames.
She graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting.
Career
Early in her career, Falco made appearances on television shows like Law & Order and Homicide:
Life on the Street.
Tom Fontana, executive director of Homicide, cast Falco as Eva Thormann, the wife of an
injured police officer, after watching Falco's performance in Laws of Gravity, a 1992 film
directed by Nick Gomez.
Fontana said of her, "She's an actress who's unadorned by any embroidery.
She does everything with such simplicity and honesty, it's breathtaking."
A struggling actress at the time, Falco said her salary from these television episodes
paid for one month's worth of rent.
Fontana cast Falco as a regular character, prison officer Diane Whittlesey, in his HBO
series Oz based on her work in the Homicide episodes "Son of a Gun" and "A Shot in the
Dark".
Her first big break in films was a small speaking role in the 1994 Woody Allen film Bullets
Over Broadway.
Her friendship with former SUNY Purchase classmate Eric Mendelsohn, who was the assistant to
Allen's costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, helped her to be cast in the role.
Mendelsohn would go on to direct Falco in his feature film Judy Berlin, for which he
won "Best Director" honors at the Sundance Film Festival.
Falco would go on to star in Mendelsohn's next film "3 Backyards", for which he won
"Best Director" a second time.
Mendelsohn is the only director to ever win this award twice.
Falco, The X-Files star Gillian Anderson, Ugly Betty star America Ferrera, and 30 Rock's
Tina Fey are the only actresses to have received a Golden Globe, an Emmy and a SAG Award in
the same year.
Falco won these awards in 2003 for her performance as Carmela during the fourth season of The
Sopranos.
Edie Falco’s character Carmela Soprano is praised in Kristyn Gorton's essay "Why I Love
Carmela Soprano" for challenging Italian-American gender roles.
Edie has won four Emmys, two Golden Globes and five Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Falco is the second actor to have won Emmys for lead acting in both a Drama and a Comedy
series.
Falco has appeared in the films Trust, Reversal of Fortune, Cop Land, Private Parts, Random
Hearts, Freedomland, and John Sayles' Sunshine State, for which she received the Los Angeles
Film Critics Award for "Best Supporting Actress".
On Broadway, she appeared in the Tony Award-winning Side Man and in the revivals of Frankie and
Johnny in the Clair de Lune opposite Stanley Tucci, and 'night, Mother opposite Brenda
Blethyn.
She has also appeared as a guest star on the television shows 30 Rock and Will & Grace.
Edie stars as the title character in the Showtime dark comedy series Nurse Jackie, which premiered
in June 2009.
She recently played the part of Bananas in the Broadway revival of House of Blue Leaves
in New York City with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Jason Leigh, for which she received her first
and only Tony Award nomination.
It was announced in January that Falco would star in Liz Flahive's The Madrid Off-Broadway.
The limited engagement, directed by Leigh Silverman, will begin performances February
5 with an official opening February 26.
Along with Falco, the play will star John Ellison, Christopher Evan Welch, Phoebe Strole
and Frances Sternhagen.
Politics During the 2004 U.S. presidential election,
Falco appeared in a 30-second television commercial on behalf of M.O.B. in which she said "Mothers
always put their children first.
Mr. Bush, can you say the same?"
referring to the fact that George W. Bush's daughters have no military experience in contrast
to his perceived warmongering policies.
Records show that she donated $1,000 to John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, $300 to
the Democratic National Committee in 2004, and two separate sums of $1,000 and $300 to
Hillary Clinton in 2005.
Edie Falco has become the spokesperson for Health Care for America Now and appeared on
CNN on June 25, 2009.
Personal life In 2003, Falco was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She chose not to make the news public until the following year.
Falco has had problems with alcohol and decided to become sober after "one particular night
of debauchery".
She said in an interview that it was hard to be around the hard-partying cast of The
Sopranos; "This cast in particular, they really love to hang out and party.
They make it look like fun.
And it was fun for me!
They spend a lot more time without me than with me, by my own choice.
I'm always invited, and I'm always there for two minutes and I leave, because I can't live
in that world anymore.
It's too dangerous."
She is an advocate of Alcoholics Anonymous' 12-step program.
Falco adopted a son, Anderson, in 2005 and a daughter, Macy, in 2008.
In 2012, Falco was the subject of an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? which focused
on her matrilineal descent from the daughter of a Cornish master mariner, from Penzance,
who was born at sea and died in 1840.
In 2013, Falco teamed up with PETA in an ad urging parents to keep their children away
from the circus.
Filmography Film
Television Theatre
Awards and nominations
References
External links Edie Falco at the Internet Broadway Database
Edie Falco at the Internet Movie Database Biography at Hollywood.com
Sopranos cast biography Edie Falco at Emmys.com