A versatile character actor since the early 1980s, Frances McDormand is best known as deadpan Sheriff Marge Gunderson in the Coen brothers film Fargo (1996, with Steve Buscemi). The role won her an Oscar as the year's best actress. McDormand made her screen debut in the Coens's first feature, Blood Simple (1984), and married Joel Coen in 1984. She has appeared in several Coen brothers movies, including Raising Arizona (1987, with Nicolas Cage), Miller's Crossing (1990) and The Man Who Wasn't There (2001, with Billy Bob Thornton). McDormand has been a critical favorite over the years, and has been nominated twice for best supporting actress Oscars, for Mississippi Burning (1988, with Willem Dafoe) and Almost Famous (2000, with Zooey Deschanel). She's also been nominated for an Emmy (1996's Hidden in America) and a Tony (1988's A Streetcar Named Desire). Her other films include Sam Raimi's Darkman (1990), Wonder Boys (2000, with Tobey Maguire) and Something's Gotta Give (2003, with Diane Keaton).
In 1985 she had a small, recurring role in the TV cop drama Hill Street Blues... McDormand was a college roommate of Holly Hunter at the Yale School of Drama... Some sources list her birth year as 1958.
Career Highlights: Blood Simple, Fargo, Short Cuts
First Major Screen Credit: Blood Simple (1984)
Biography
Born the daughter of an Illinois minister on June 23, 1957, Frances McDormand attended West Virginia's Bethany College and later studied acting at the prestigious Yale Drama School. After her graduation, McDormand could be seen gaining professional experience in numerous stage productions across the country. In 1984, McDormand made her film debut playing a somewhat dim-witted adulterous wife in the Coen brothers' Blood Simple, thus beginning an association that would culminate in her marriage to director Joel Coen. Despite winning critical acclaim for her performance, it would be four years, save for a cameo in the Coens' Raising Arizona (1987) and various small roles, before she would be featured in another major film production. In the meantime, McDormand's stage career flourished, and she received a Tony nomination for the 1987 Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. She also did periodic television work, co-starring on the short-lived detective drama Legwork (1987) and appearing in a recurring role on Hill Street Blues.
In 1988, McDormand found her way back into the Hollywood spotlight, and won an Oscar nomination for her role as a Klan wife who testifies against a good ol' boy sheriff in Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning. Her film career picked up significantly afterwards, and led to appearances in a wide variety of well-wrought dramas, including Ken Loach's controversial Hidden Agenda (1990), which featured the actress one of a group of American attorneys working to improve prisoner rights throughout a war-torn Ireland. 1990 would also find her playing a small role in the Coens' Miller's Crossing, which led to a similar performance in Robert Altman's Short Cuts. In 1996, McDormand won a Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of sheriff Marge Gunderson in Fargo, yet another Coen brothers film. The following year, she co-starred as a German doctor in Bruce Beresford's WWII drama Paradise Road, and then tried her hand at children's films with a starring role in Madeline (1998).
In 2000, McDormand made memorable supporting appearances in two films. First was the part of an adulterous academic wife in Curtis Hanson's overlooked Wonder Boys; late that year she could be seen playing the well-meaning, yet unarguably overprotective mother in Cameron Crowe's critically successful coming-of-age drama Almost Famous. The latter would net her another Supporting Actress nomination. In 2001, McDormand could be seen playing a camped-out version of a film noir lush in the Coens' The Man Who Wasn't There. Her subsequent role in 2002's Laurel Canyon -- as an aging, wild-child record producer -- earned her critical hosannas, even if the film was little-seen. The issue picture North Country offered her the challenge of playing a working-class woman gradually succumbing to Lou Gehrig's disease, and in early 2006, earned her another Best Supporting Actress nomination. She followed it up with an acid-tongued role in the ensemble comedy-drama Friends With Money. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
"After Blood Simple, everybody thought I was from Texas. After Mississippi Burning, everybody thought I was from Mississippi and uneducated. After Fargo, everybody's going to think I'm from Minnesota, pregnant, and have blonde hair. I don't think you can ever completely transform yourself on film, but if you do your job well, you can make people believe that you're the character you're trying to be."
Frances Louise McDormand[1] (born June 23, 1957) is an American film, stage, and television actress, best known for her role as Marge Gunderson in Fargo.
Frances was born in Chicago, Illinois and was adopted by the McDormands, a Canadian couple: Noreen, a registered nurse and receptionist, and Vernon, a Disciples of Christ pastor. Frances has said that her biological mother may have been one of the parishioners at Vernon's church.[2] McDormand has a sister, Dorothy A. McDormand, who is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and chaplain,[3] as well as two other siblings, all of whom were adopted by the McDormands, who had no biological children. As 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,[4] before settling in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area town of Monessen, where she graduated from high school in 1975. She attended Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia, and earned a B.A. in Theater in 1979.
McDormand appeared in several theatrical and television roles during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. She has gained renown and critical acclaim for her dramatic work, and is a respected actress, having been nominated for Academy Awards four times. In 1988, she was nominated for a Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Mississippi Burning; in 1996, she won the Academy award for Best Actress for her performance as police chief Marge Gunderson in Fargo; in 2000, she earned her second nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her portrayal of a concerned mother in Almost Famous. Also for Almost Famous, she won the Best Supporting Actress nod from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics Association, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, San Diego Film Critics Society, Southeastern Film Critics Association, and the Florida Film Critics Circle. 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.
