Frances McDormand

Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith, June 23, 1957) is an American actress and producer. McDormand is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award, one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting."

Frances McDormand
Born
Cynthia Ann Smith

(1957-06-23) June 23, 1957
Gibson City, Illinois, U.S.
Education
Occupation
  • Actress
  • producer
Years active1982–present
Works
Full list
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 1984)​
Children1
AwardsFull list

McDormand was educated at Bethany College and Yale University. She has starred in a number of films by the Coen brothers, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008), and Hail, Caesar! (2016). For her portrayal of Marge Gunderson in Fargo, McDormand won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other film roles include Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), all of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2017, she starred as a hardened woman seeking justice for her daughter's murder in the crime-drama film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which won her a second Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2020, she starred in and produced the acclaimed independent western drama film Nomadland.

McDormand made her Broadway debut in a 1984 revival of the drama Awake and Sing!, and received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her acclaimed performance as Stella Kowalski in a 1988 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. She returned to Broadway in 2008 with a revival of The Country Girl, leading to a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Play. In 2011, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing a troubled single mother in Good People. On television, McDormand played the titular protagonist in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014), which won her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.

Early life

McDormand was born Cynthia Ann Smith in Gibson City, Illinois.[1] She was adopted at one and a half years of age by Noreen (Nickelson) and Vernon McDormand and renamed Frances Louise McDormand.[1] Her adoptive mother was a nurse and receptionist while her adoptive father was a Disciples of Christ pastor; both were originally from Canada.[2][3] McDormand has said that her biological mother, to whom she proudly referred, along with herself, as "white trash," may have been one of the parishioners at Vernon's church.[1][2] She has a sister, Dorothy A. "Dot" McDormand, who is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and chaplain,[4] as well as another sibling, both of whom were adopted by the McDormands, who had no biological children.

Because her father specialized in restoring congregations,[2] he frequently moved their family, and they lived in several small towns in Illinois, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee,[5] before settling in Monessen, Pennsylvania, where McDormand graduated from Monessen High School in 1975. She attended Bethany College in West Virginia, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in theater in 1979. In 1982, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama. She was a roommate of actress Holly Hunter while living in New York City.[6]

Career

McDormand's first professional acting job was in Derek Walcott's play In a Fine Castle also known as The Last Carnival, which was funded by the MacArthur Foundation and performed in Trinidad. In 1984 she made her film debut in Blood Simple, the first film by the Coen brothers. In 1987, she appeared as wacky friend Dot in 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. In 2002, "the game and talented" McDormand performed as Oenone in the Wooster Group's production of an "exhilarating dissection" of Racine's tragedy Phèdre entitled To You, the Birdie!, at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York.[7]

After appearing in several theatrical and television roles during the 1980s, McDormand gradually gained renown and critical acclaim for her dramatic work in film.[8] In 1988, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Mississippi Burning. Cast alongside Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, McDormand was singled out for praise, with Sheila Benson in her review for the Los Angeles Times writing, "Hackman's mastery reaches a peak here, but McDormand soars right with him. And since she is the film's sole voice of morality, it's right that she is so memorable."[9] In 1996, she won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as pregnant police Chief Marge Gunderson in Fargo, written and directed by the Coen brothers.[10] Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert called Fargo "one of the best films I've ever seen" and felt that McDormand "should have a lock on an Academy Award nomination with this performance, which is true in every individual moment, and yet slyly, quietly, over the top in its cumulative effect."[11]

In 2000, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for her portrayal of an overbearing mother in Almost Famous. For her role in Wonder Boys (2000), 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 North Country (2005). The same year she won an Independent Spirit Award for her supporting role in Nicole Holofcener's dark comedy Friends with Money (2006).[12] She also voiced the role of the principal Melanie Upfoot in The Simpsons episode "Girls Just Want to Have Sums", which aired on April 30, 2006.

In 2008, McDormand starred in the films Burn After Reading and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. She then appeared in the action movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon, playing the US government's National Intelligence Director, alongside her 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.[13][14] Her performance earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.[15] In the animated film Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012), she voiced Captain Chantel Dubois and also sang a version of the French song "Non, je ne regrette rien".

McDormand starred in Promised Land with Matt Damon, released in December 2012.[16] In November 2014, HBO telecast a four-part mini-series based upon the series of short stories by Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge, co-produced by and starring McDormand.[17] The role won her the Primetime Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. With her Emmy win, McDormand became the 12th actress in history to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting", for competitive Oscar, Emmy, and Tony Award wins in acting categories.

McDormand starred in the 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, for which she won her second Academy Award for Best Actress (her statuette was stolen briefly following the awards ceremony),[18] the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama,[19] and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. During that year's awards season, she received significant media attention for her feminist provoking speeches which came with the advent of the Time's Up and Me Too movements.

In 2019, McDormand played God in Good Omens. In 2020, McDormand produced and starred in Chloe Zhao's Nomadland, a performance for which she has received unanimous critical acclaim.

Personal life

McDormand has been married to director Joel Coen since 1984. In 1995, they adopted a son from Paraguay, Pedro McDormand Coen, when he was six months old.[20][21] They reside in New York City and also own a home in Bolinas, California.[22][23]

Filmography
Main article: Frances McDormand filmography

Awards and nominations
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Frances McDormand

See also

References
  1. Kisner, Jordan (October 3, 2017). "Frances McDormand's Difficult Women". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 13, 2018. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
  2. "Naked ambition". The Age. Melbourne, Australia. October 25, 2003. Archived from the original on December 29, 2019. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  3. "Rev Vernon Weir McDormand (1922 - 2011)". www.findagrave.com. Archived from the original on March 10, 2018. Retrieved February 20, 2018.
  4. "Disciples "PK" wins best actress' award. Disciples News Service Release. 31 March 2007". Disciples.org. Archived from the original on March 2, 2008. Retrieved July 29, 2010.
  5. "I'd love to play a psycho killer. film.guardian.co.uk. 26 January 2001". The Guardian. London. February 14, 2001. Archived from the original on December 2, 2008. Retrieved July 29, 2010.
  6. "Fast Chat: Holly Hunter". Newsday. July 13, 2008. Archived from the original on August 13, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
  7. Ben Brantley (2002). "Theater Review: Racine's Pale Queen, Struggling With Racket Sports". The New York Times. February 19, 2002.
  8. "Story Medium". Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved April 20, 2011. Imagine Fashion. Interview with Frances McDormand (2011).
  9. Benson, Sheila (December 18, 1988). "RCritic's Notebook: Some 'Burning' Questions". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 1, 2016. Retrieved April 30, 2016.
  10. "Cameron Crowe, Frances McDormand interview, Interview Magazine, October 2000". Archived from the original on April 1, 2016. Retrieved October 19, 2014.
  11. Ebert, Roger (March 8, 1996). "Fargo". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Archived from the original on December 7, 2017. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  12. ""Little Miss Sunshine" pulls up to take the crown at 2007 Film Independent's Spirit Awards". Film Independent Spirit Awards. February 24, 2007. Archived from the original on February 27, 2007. Retrieved August 8, 2015.
  13. Jones, Kenneth." 'Good People', Play of Aspiration and Escape, With Frances McDormand and Tate Donovan, Begins on Broadway" Archived February 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Playbill, February 8, 2011
  14. Jones, Kenneth."Broadway's 'Good People' Gets Final Extension, Shifting Dates of 'Master Class'" Archived May 1, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Playbill, March 22, 2011
  15. Jones, Kenneth and Gans, Andrew."2011 Tony Nominations Announced; 'Book of Mormon' Earns 14 Nominations" Archived September 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine playbill.com, May 3, 2011
  16. Gerhardt, Tina (December 31, 2012). "Matt Damon Exposes Fracking in Promised Land". The Progressive. Archived from the original on August 26, 2016. Retrieved December 31, 2012.
  17. Bruni, Frank (October 15, 2014). "Frances McDormand, True to Herself in HBO's Olive Kitteridge". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  18. Melas, Chloe (March 5, 2018). "Frances McDormand's Oscar stolen (and returned)". CNN. Turner Broadcasting System. Archived from the original on March 7, 2018. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  19. Grobar, Matt (January 7, 2018). "'Three Billboards' Star Frances McDormand Expresses Gratitude For Tectonic Shift In Entertainment Industry". Deadline. Archived from the original on January 8, 2018. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  20. Durbin, Karen (March 2, 2003). "The Prime Of Frances McDormand". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 30, 2019. Retrieved July 21, 2017.
  21. Nesa, Kamrun (March 11, 2018). "Everything We Know About Frances McDormand and Joel Coen's Son, Pedro". POPSUGAR Celebrity. Retrieved September 18, 2019.
  22. Britt, Aaron (January 28, 2007). "Going coastal / Is the elusive bohemian enclave of Bolinas getting a bit glossier?". SFGate. Hearst Corporation. Archived from the original on February 21, 2018. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  23. Bruni, Frank (October 15, 2014). "A Star Who Has No Time for Vanity". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018. Retrieved July 21, 2017.
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