Mary Steenburgen

Mary Steenburgen, an Academy Award® winning actress, musician, entrepreneur and philanthropist, is a veteran actress of both film and television.

Steenburgen won an Oscar® for Best Supporting Actress and a Golden Globe for her performance in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard. Since Jack Nicholson discovered her for his directorial debut Goin' South, her first film role that brought her a Golden Globe nomination, Steenburgen has appeared in more than 80 television and film roles.

She has won almost twenty awards including a Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG) as part of the ensemble cast of The Help and received 12 nominations, including a BAFTA for Tender Is the Night, a Golden Globe for Milos Forman's Ragtime, an Emmy for The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank and two SAG nominations – as part of the ensemble cast in Oliver Stone's Nixon and Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in TV Movie or Miniseries for About Sarah. She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2009.

Steenburgen has had recurring roles in multiple television series including FX's acclaimed Wilfred opposite Elijah Wood; NBC's 30 Rock co-starring Alec Baldwin; and HBO's Bored To Death with her husband Ted Danson. The couple also appeared in HBO's hit comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm and co-starred in the CBS sitcom Ink. She also executve produced an episode of the CBS series.

Her film credits include: Lasse Hallström's What's Eating Gilbert Grape with Johnny Depp; Back To The Future 3; Dirty Girl, co-starring opposite Juno Temple and William H. Macy; Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia opposite Tom Hanks; Ron Howard's Parenthood with Steve Martin; The Proposal co-starring Sandra Bullock; Seth Gordon's Four Christmases and Step Brothers with Will Ferrell.

In Steenburgen's case art truly imitates life. Steenburgen plays chanteuse Diana in Last Vegas, a woman who finds music as a second career and fulfillment of a lifelong dream. In real life, Steenburgen found a second calling in entertainment as a singer/songwriter.

As a songwriter for the Universal Music Publishing Group, she has written with acclaimed songwriters Matraca Berg, Troy Verges, Hillary Lindsey and Lori McKenna and recently co-wrote music for Grammy-Award winning country artist Tim McGraw. She co-wrote "Rainbird," the featured song in Dirty Girl with Melissa Manchester, a film in which she also starred.

An entrepreneur, Steenburgen has diversified interests in interior design, a business venture with her daughter and a new restaurant in her native Arkansas. She co-owns the candle company Nell's Compass with her daughter Lilly McDowell, eco-friendly candles sold at Steenburgen's California-based Rooms and Gardens boutiques. The stores showcase furniture, antiques and interior design. She recently partnered with the Southern literary quarterly Oxford Magazine in the Little Rock restaurant venture South on Main, which serves Southern cuisine and provides performance space for musicians and artists.

As a philanthropist, she co-founded Artists for a New South Africa with actress Alfre Woodard. She is an avid supporter of Heifer International, a global nonprofit that gives out gifts of livestock, seeds and trees and extensive training to those in need and Oceana, an International marine conservation and advocacy organization.

CBS Films