Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress.
She is known for her portrayal as Will Truman's mother, Marilyn, in the sitcom Will & Grace
and for her role in the 2000 comedy hit Meet the Parents, and its sequels, Meet the Fockers
and Little Fockers.
She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.
Early life Danner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
the daughter of Katharine and Harry Earl Danner, a bank executive.
She has a brother, opera singer/actor Harry Danner, a sister, performer-turned-director
Dorothy Danner, and a half-brother, violin maker William Moennig.
Danner has Pennsylvania Dutch, and some English and Irish, ancestry; her maternal grandmother
was a German immigrant, and one of her paternal great-grandmothers was born in Barbados.
Danner graduated from George School, a Quaker high school located in Newtown, PA in 1960.
Career A graduate of Bard College, Danner's first
roles included the 1967 musical Mata Hari, and the 1968 off-Broadway production, Summertree.
Her early Broadway appearances included roles in Cyrano de Bergerac and The Miser.
She won a Best Supporting Actress Tony playing a free-spirited divorcee in Butterflies Are
Free.
In 1972, Danner portrayed Martha Jefferson opposite Ken Howard's Thomas Jefferson in
the movie version of 1776.
That same year, she played a cuckolded wife opposite Peter Falk and John Cassavetes in
the Columbo episode "Etude in Black".
Her earliest starring film role was opposite Alan Alda in To Kill a Clown.
Danner appeared in the episode of M*A*S*H entitled "The More I See You", playing the
love interest of Alda's character Hawkeye Pierce.
She played lawyer Amanda Bonner in television's Adam's Rib, also opposite Ken Howard as Adam
Bonner.
She played Zelda Fitzgerald in The Last of the Belles.
She was the eponymous heroine in the film Lovin' Molly.
She appeared in Futureworld, playing Tracy Ballard with co-star Peter Fonda.
In the 1982 TV movie Inside the Third Reich, she played the wife of Albert Speer.
In the film version of Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical play Brighton Beach Memoirs, she portrayed
a middle-aged Jewish mother.
She has appeared in two films based on the novels of Pat Conroy, The Great Santini and
The Prince of Tides, as well as two television movies adapted from books by Anne Tyler, Saint
Maybe and Back When We Were Grownups, both for the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Danner appeared opposite Robert De Niro in the 2000 comedy hit Meet the Parents, and
its sequels, Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers.
From 2001 to 2006, she regularly appeared on Will & Grace as Will Truman's mother Marilyn.
From 2004 to 2006, she starred in the TV series Huff.
In 2005, she was nominated for three Emmy Awards: for her work on Will & Grace, Huff
and Back When We Were Grownups.
Emmy host Ellen DeGeneres poked fun at Danner during the award ceremony, saying that Danner
should not be nervous because she was almost certain to win at least one Emmy, which she
did, for Huff.
In July 2006, she won a second consecutive Emmy award for Huff.
For 25 years, she has been a regular performer at the Williamstown Summer Theater Festival,
where she also serves on the Board of Directors.
In 2006, Danner was awarded an inaugural Katharine Hepburn Medal by Bryn Mawr College's Katharine
Houghton Hepburn Center.
Environmental activism Danner has been involved in environmental
issues such as recycling and conservation for over 30 years.
She has been active with INFORM, Inc., is on the Board of Environmental Advocates of
New York and the Board of Directors of the Environmental Media Association, and won the
2002 EMA Board of Directors Ongoing Commitment Award.
In 2011, Danner joined Moms Clean Air Force, to help call on parents to join in the fight
against toxic air pollution.
Health care activism After the death of her husband Bruce Paltrow
from oral cancer, she became involved with the Oral Cancer Foundation, a national 501(c)3
non profit charity.
In 2005, she filmed a public service announcement that played on TV stations around the country
about the risks associated with oral cancer, and through that shared the personal pain
associated with the loss of her husband publicly to further awareness of the disease and the
need for early detection.
She continues to donate her time to the foundation, and has appeared on morning talk shows, and
has done interviews in high profile magazines such as People to further public awareness
of the disease and its risk factors.
Through The Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer Fund, administered by the Oral Cancer Foundation,
she continues to raise awareness and funding for oral cancer issues, particularly those
involving communities in which disparities in health care exist.
She is now appearing in commercials for Prolia.
Personal life Danner is the widow of producer/director Bruce
Paltrow, who died from complications of pneumonia while battling oral cancer in 2002, and the
mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.
Danner first co-starred with her daughter in 1992 in the TV movie Cruel Doubt and then
again in the 2003 film Sylvia playing Aurelia Plath, mother to Gwyneth Paltrow's title role
as Sylvia Plath.
Awards Emmy Awards
Supporting Actress – Drama Series 2005 Huff
2006 Huff Tony Awards
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play
1970 Butterflies Are Free Theatre World Award
1968The Miser Other Awards
Women in Film Lucy Award 2004
Filmography Film
Television Theater work
The Glass Menagerie The Service of Joseph Axminster
The Way Out of the Way In The Knack
The Infantry A Midsummer Night's Dream
Three Sisters Mata Hari
Summertree Cyrano de Bergerac
Up Eden Lovers
Someone's Comin' Hungry The Miser
Butterflies Are Free Major Barbara
Twelfth Night The Seagull
Ring Round the Moon The New York Idea
Children of the Sun Betrayal
The Philadelphia Story Blithe Spirit
A Streetcar Named Desire Much Ado About Nothing
Love Letters Picnic
The Seagull Sylvia
Moonlight The Deep Blue Sea
Ancestral Voices Tonight
Follies Little Murders
Carousel The Chekhov Cycle
All About Eve " Nice Work If You Can Get It"
References
External links Blythe Danner at the Internet Broadway Database
Blythe Danner at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
Blythe Danner at the Internet Movie Database Stage biography from Playbill website
2003 article from the Environmental Media Association
Interviews Blythe Danner interview: Leading Ladies Working
in the Theatre video from American Theatre Wing, December 2006
Working in the Theatre: Performance video seminar at American Theatre Wing, April 1998
Working in the Theatre: Performance video seminar at American Theatre Wing, April 1988