Marcia Gay Harden facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Marcia Gay Harden
Harden in 2013
Born	(1959-08-14) August 14, 1959 (age 65) La Jolla, San Diego, California, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Texas, Austin (BA) New York University (MFA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1979–present
Spouse(s)	Thaddaeus Scheel ​ ​ (m. 1996; div. 2012)​
Children	3
Awards	Full list

Marcia Gay Harden (born August 14, 1959) is an American actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards.

Born in the La Jolla area of San Diego, California, Harden began her acting career appearing in television programs throughout the 1980s. In 1986, she appeared in her first film role, with her breakthrough coming in the 1990 Coen brothers–directed Miller's Crossing. For her portrayal of artist Lee Krasner in the 2000 biographical film Pollock, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received a second Academy Award nomination for her performance as Celeste Boyle in the drama film Mystic River (2003). Her other notable film credits include The First Wives Club (1996), Flubber (1997), Space Cowboys (2000), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), and the Fifty Shades film trilogy.

Harden made her Broadway debut in 1993, starring in Tony Kushner's epic play Angels in America: Millennium Approaches/Angels in America: Perestroika for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She returned to Broadway in 2009 as Veronica in Yazmina Reza's comedic play God of Carnage, with her performance earning her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

Harden's television credits include the HBO series The Newsroom, the ABC series How to Get Away with Murder, the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show, and CBS series Code Black and So Help Me Todd. She received her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her role as FBI Special Agent Dana Lewis in the crime drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and earned a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her performance as Janina Krzyżanowska in the television film The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009).

Early life

Harden was born in La Jolla, California, the daughter of Texas natives Beverly Harden (née Bushfield), a housewife, and Thad Harold Harden (1932–2002), who was an officer in the United States Navy. She has three sisters and one brother.

Harden's brother is named Thaddeus, as are her father and her former husband. Harden's family frequently moved because of her father's job, living in Japan, Germany, Greece, California, and Maryland.

Harden graduated from Surrattsville High School in Clinton, Maryland in 1976. She received a Bachelor of Arts in theater from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980. Harden received a Master of Fine Arts from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1988.

Career

Harden's first film role was in a 1979 student-produced film at the University of Texas. Throughout the 1980s, she appeared in several television programs, including Simon & Simon, Kojak, and CBS Summer Playhouse. She appeared in The Imagemaker (1986), her first film screen role, in which she played a stage manager. She appeared in the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990), a 1930s mobster drama in which she first gained wide exposure. Even so, at the time, living in New York City, she had to go back to doing catering jobs "because I didn't have any money".

Harden debuted on Broadway in the role of Harper Pitt (and others) in Tony Kushner's Angels in America in 1993. The role earned her critical acclaim and she received a Tony Award nomination (Best Featured Actress in a Play).

Harden played actress Ava Gardner alongside Philip Casnoff as Frank Sinatra in the 1992 made-for-TV miniseries Sinatra. Throughout the 1990s, she continued to appear in films and television. Her notable film roles include the Disney sci-fi comedy Flubber (1997), a popular hit in which she co-starred with Robin Williams; the supernatural drama Meet Joe Black (1998), playing the under-appreciated daughter of a tycoon (Anthony Hopkins, co-starring Brad Pitt); Labor of Love (1998), a Lifetime television film in which she starred with David Marshall Grant; and Space Cowboys (2000), an all-star adventure-drama about aging astronauts.

Harden at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival

In 2000, Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of painter Lee Krasner in the biographical film Pollock. In 2004, she received a second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the mystery crime drama Mystic River.

Harden guest-starred as FBI undercover agent Dana Lewis posing as a white supremacist in "Raw", an episode of the popular crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. This role earned Harden her first Emmy Award nomination for best guest actress in a drama series in 2007.

Harden appeared in several 2007 films, including Sean Penn's Into the Wild and Frank Darabont's The Mist (opposite Thomas Jane and Laurie Holden), based on the novella by Stephen King. Also in 2007, she shared top billing with Kevin Bacon in Rails & Ties, the directorial debut of Alison Eastwood. Harden starred in the Christmas Cottage, a story of the early artistic beginnings of the painter Thomas Kinkade.

Harden at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

Harden appeared as a regular on the FX series Damages as a shrewd corporate attorney opposite Glenn Close and William Hurt in 2009. She received a 2009 Emmy nomination for her role in The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, a TV film also starring Oscar-winner Anna Paquin. She was a Best Supporting Actress in a TV Movie/Miniseries nominee and lost to Shohreh Aghdashloo. If she had won this Emmy, Harden would have entered the elite group of "triple-crown" actors, those who have won the profession's three highest honors: the Academy Award (film), the Tony Award (stage), and the Emmy Award (television).

Harden co-starred with Elliot Page and Drew Barrymore in 2009's Whip It, which proved a critical success. She also appeared in the comedy The Maiden Heist (2009) with Christopher Walken and Morgan Freeman.

Harden returned to Broadway in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, co-starring with James Gandolfini, Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels, in 2009. All three actors were nominated for a Tony Award; Harden won Best Actress in a Play.

Harden reunited with her former Broadway co-star Jeff Daniels as a new cast member on HBO's series The Newsroom in 2013. She played Christian Grey's mother, Grace Trevelyan Grey, in the Fifty Shades film series from 2015 to 2018. Also in 2015, she began a starring role in the TV series Code Black. She stars in the 2022 CBS drama So Help Me Todd, since renewed for a second season.

Personal life

In 1996, Harden married Thaddaeus Scheel, a prop master, with whom she worked on The Spitfire Grill. They have three children: Eulala Grace Scheel (born September 1998), and twins Julitta Dee Scheel and Hudson Harden Scheel (born April 22, 2004). In February 2012, Harden filed for divorce from Scheel.

Harden has owned a property in the Catskills and a townhouse in Harlem. She sold the Harlem townhouse in 2012.

Harden is an avid potter, which she learned in high school, and then took up again while acting in Angels in America.

Harden is a practitioner of ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arrangement, which her mother learned while they lived in Japan. She gave a brief demonstration in 2007 on The Martha Stewart Show and presented some works of her family, as well.

In May 2018, a memoir called The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Flowers was published. The book details the story and bond of mother and daughter throughout time and how they are dealing with the largest struggle yet, her mother's Alzheimer's disease. Harden created works of ikebana specifically for this book to illustrate the different seasons of her mother's life.

Acting credits

Film

List of films and roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1990	Miller's Crossing	Verna Bernbaum
1991	Late for Dinner	Joy Husband
	In Broad Daylight	Adina Rowan
1992	Crush	Lane
	Used People	Norma
1994	Safe Passage	Cynthia
1996	The Spitfire Grill	Shelby Goddard
	The Daytrippers	Libby
	The First Wives Club	Dr. Leslie Rosen
	Spy Hard	Miss Cheevus
	Far Harbor	Arabella
1997	Flubber	Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds
1998	Desperate Measures	Dr. Samantha Hawkins
	Meet Joe Black	Allison Parrish
	Curtain Call	Michelle Tippet
2000	Space Cowboys	Sara Holland
	Pollock	Lee Krasner
2001	Gaudi Afternoon	Frankie Stevens
2003	Mystic River	Celeste Boyle
	Casa de los Babys	Nan
	Mona Lisa Smile	Nancy Abbey
2004	Welcome to Mooseport	Grace Sutherland
	P.S.	Missy Goldberg
2005	Bad News Bears	Liz Whitewood
	Willa Cather: The Road Is All	Willa Cather	Voice role
	American Gun	Janet Huttenson
2006	American Dreamz	First Lady
	The Dead Girl	Melora
	The Hoax	Edith Irving
	Canvas	Mary Marino
2007	The Invisible	Diane Powell
	Into the Wild	Billie McCandless
	Rails & Ties	Megan Stark
	The Mist	Mrs. Carmody
2008	Home	Inga
	Thomas Kinkade's Home for Christmas	Maryanne Kinkade
2009	The Maiden Heist	Rose
	Whip It	Brooke Cavendar
2010	A Cat in Paris	Jeanne	Voice role
2011	Detachment	Principal Carol Dearden
	Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You	Marjorie Dunfour
2012	Noah's Ark: The New Beginning	Aamah	Voice role
	If I Were You	Madelyn
2013	The Wine of Summer	Shelley
	Parkland	Head Nurse Doris Nelson
2014	Magic in the Moonlight	Mrs. Baker
	You're Not You	Elizabeth
	Elsa & Fred	Lydia Barcroft
	Unity	Narrator	Documentary
2015	Grandma	Judy
	Fifty Shades of Grey	Grace Trevelyan Grey
	Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant	President of the FAFAFA
	After Words	Jane Taylor
2016	Get a Job	Katherine Dunn
2017	Fifty Shades Darker	Grace Trevelyan Grey
2018	Fifty Shades Freed
2019	Point Blank	Regina Lewis
2020	Pink Skies Ahead	Pamela
2021	Moxie	Principal Marlene Shelly
2022	Gigi & Nate	Claire Gibson
	Confess, Fletch	The Countess
	Tell It Like a Woman	Dr. Partovi
2023	Daughter of the Bride	Diane
	Knox Goes Away	TBA	Post-production

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Television

Theater

Awards and nominations

See also

In Spanish: Marcia Gay Harden para niños