Stage, film, and television actress. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She first won acting acclaim for her winsome performance in the off-Broadway play Summertree (1968) and in the next year won a Best Supporting Actress Tony for her Broadway debut as a free-spirited young divorcee in Butterflies Are Free (1969).
In the same year she married Bruce Paltrow, the writer and producer responsible for the hugely popular 1980s television drama, St. Elsewhere. Appearing in a number of successful Broadway productions, the genteel actress has been a regular member of the Williamstown Theater Festival since the mid 1970s. She has also accrued an impressive film resume, starring as Robert Duvall’s stalwart wife in The Great Santini (1979) and as a Jewish mother in Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986); among other film appearances.
In October 2002, while vacationing in Italy, her husband, Bruce, succumbed to complications from pneumonia. He had also battled throat cancer for the past few years. With her husband, she has two children: Gwyneth, an Academy Award-winning actress, and Jake, an actor and director.