William H. Macy
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William H. Macy
Emmy Award-winner William H. Macy is an actor, director and writer. He attended Bethany College in West Virginia in the veterinary medicine program but he soon switched to theater. He transferred to Vermont's Goddard College, where he studied under playwright David Mamet. Upon graduation, Macy joined Mamet's Chicago theater troupe, and, with him, founded the St. Nicholas Theatre Company. In 1975, the troupe staged Mamet's American Buffalo with Macy playing "Bobby," the youth who serves as a kind of witless apprentice to two hapless thieves. He continued to perform with the company until 1978 when he moved to New York to further his career. There Macy acted on and off-Broadway and began appearing on television. Macy found success in off-Broadway shows, including a Mamet-directed Twelfth Night (1980-81) and A. R. Gurney's The Dining Room (1982), and he and Mamet also co-founded the Atlantic Theatre Company, where Macy has both acted and directed. By the time the actor finally reached Broadway portraying "Howie Newsome" in the 1988 all-star revival of Our Town, Mamet had already used him in small roles for his House of Games (1987) and Things Change (1988), and in a larger role as a doomed police detective in Homicide (1991). After starring onstage as a college professor accused of sexual harassment by a female student in Mamet's Oleanna (1992), he reprised the role in Mamet's 1994 film version.
In 1994, after having guest-starred in a number of TV series, Macy won the part of "Dr. David Morgenstern," the hospital chief of staff on E.R., a part he would hold for four years. In the meantime, he won several supporting screen roles, but his big screen role breakthrough only came in 1996 playing duplicitous car salesman "Jerry Lundegaard" in Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo, which won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Success continued the following year when he landed roles in three feature films, Wag the Dog, Air Force One and Boogie Nights. He finished the decade with a wide range of supporting roles in such diverse films as A Civil Action, Pleasantville, Happy, Texas, Mystery Men and Magnolia.
Macy co-wrote one of his best parts in 1999, that of a movie critic who turns out to be a philandering, larcenous murderer in TNT's A Slight Case of Murder. His fourth TV movie scripted with Steven Schachter cast him opposite wife Felicity Huffman, and he later took a recurring role as a ratings expert on her ABC series Sports Night. He was back with Mamet for State and Main (2000), playing a libidinous Hollywood director on location in Vermont. He also acted that year in a London revival of American Buffalo, this time taking the larger, and older role of "Teach." Recent films that have brought Macy continued acclaim include Welcome to Collinwood, The Cooler, Stealing Sinatra, Seabiscuit, Thank You for Smoking, Bobby and Wild Hogs. In 2003, he won two Emmy Awards — for lead actor and co-writer of Door to Door. He also was nominated for three Golden Globe awards, in 2003 for Door to Door, in 2004 for Seabiscuit and in 2005 for The Wool Cap.
Born William Hall Macy on March 13, 1950, in Miami, FL., Macy married Felicity Huffman in 1997. The couple has two daughters.
Last updated: March 16, 2009.
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William H. Macy
Biography
William H. Macy came to acting by way of Bethany and Goddard Colleges. At the latter school, Macy studied under playwright David Mamet, with whom he would be frequently associated throughout his career. After college, Macy was a member of Mamet's theater troupe, the St. Nicholas Company. The actor performed in a number of productions, many of them written by Mamet, until 1978 when he left the company and headed to New York. Some of his earliest work there included commercial voice-overs, such as the now infamous "Secret: Strong enough for a man, but PH balanced for a woman."Macy also continued his theater work, forming the Atlantic Theatre Company with Mamet in 1985 and acting in Broadway and off-Broadway shows. In addition, he worked in television and began doing feature films, debuting in '80s Foolin' Around. He continued to act in supporting roles throughout the decade, appearing in such films as Mamet's directorial debut, House of Games (1987) and Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987). In 1991, he won a more substantial role, in Mamet's Homicide, and subsequently began to find work in more well-known films, including Benny and Joon and The Client.
Macy finally got a shot at a leading role with his turn in Mamet's Oleanna. He won positive notices and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his portrayal of a professor accused of sexual harassment. More acclaim followed with his starring role as a hapless car salesman in Joel Coen and Ethan Coen's Fargo (1996), for which he garnered a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. The next year, Macy's star rose a little higher, thanks to his work in three high-profile films, Wag the Dog, Air Force One, and Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights. He was similarly lauded for his versatility through work in such films as Psycho and Pleasantville, and in 1999 he continued his winning streak as an unconventional superhero in Mystery Men, a gay sheriff in Happy, Texas, and a member of the ensemble cast of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia.
Despite the fact that Macy drew praise for his turn as a reluctant hit man in the 2000 drama Panic, the film went largely unseen, and his next substantial role found him running from dinosaurs in Jurassic Park III. As always Macy continued to intercut his more commercial efforts with such decidedly non-mainstream fare as Focus and Stealing Sinatra. Surprisingly, it was just such work that netted Macy some of his most glowing reviews. Case in point was a memorable performance as a disabled traveling salesman in the 2003 drama Door to Door; a role that earned its convincing lead an Emmy. After sticking to the small screen with the Showtime miniseries Out of Order, Macy went wide with the theatrical hit Seabiscuit and the breathless Larry Cohen-scripted thriller Cellular. That same year, the actor would continue to nurture a succesful ongoing collaboration with famed writer/director David Mamet in the widely-praised but little-seen crime drama Spartan. Macy has also continued to do television work, appearing on such series as Spencer, Law & Order, and ER. For his role in the 2004 made for television drama The Wool Cap (which also found him teaming with writer Steven Schachter to adapt a story originally written by Jackie Gleason), Macy was nominated for multiple awards including a Best Actor at the Golden Globe and an Emmys.
In 2005, Macy returned to home turf with the Mamet-scripted thriller Edmond, directed by Stuart "Reanimator" Gordon. The picture reunited the actor and director, who originally collaborated in the early eighties on the stage version of the playwright's Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Adapted from Mamet's 1982 one-acter, Edmond dramatizes the descent of a seemingly normal man (Macy) from sanity to unbridled psychosis. While Edmond didn't exactly bomb critically or commercially after its July 14, 2006 premiere, it fell below the bar of previous Mamet efforts on two levels: first, the studio opened it to decidedly more limited release than Mamet's directorial projects over the previous several years (such as Spartan and Heist), thus ensuring that fewer would see it, and it also suffered from somewhat lackluster reviews. Surprisingly, those who did complain of the work attacked Mamet's script in lieu Gordon's direction. Variety's Scott Foundas observed, "The problem is that, too often, we don't fully understand what motivates Edmond, and many of Mamet's efforts toward explanation -- that life is one big shell game, that we're all latent racists at heart -- feel like specious armchair philosophizing."
Macy produced that same year's Transamerica, and graced the cast of Jason Reitman's hearty satire Thank You For Smoking, with a funny turn as senator and anti-tobacco promulgator Ortolan Finistirre. At around the same time, he also voiced a crooked, baseball bat-swiping security guard in that year's family friendly animated feature Everyone's Hero. Meanwhile, audiences geared up for Macy's contribution to the ensemble of actor-cum-director Emilio Estevez's semi-fictional, Altmanesque docudrama Bobby, which recounts the events that preceded RFK's assassination by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel. As the hotel manager, Macy joins a line-up of formidable heavyweights: Helen Hunt, Elijah Wood, Harry Belafonte, Martin Sheen, Estevez himself, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, and many others. The picture had journalists and moviegoers across America whispering 'Oscar contender' long before its initial release on November 22, 2006. Shortly after production wrapped, Macy made headlines in mid-late 2006 for a comment that involved his allegedly berating Bobby co-star Lindsay Lohan's on-set behavior, in reference to her constant tardiness.
Meanwhile, the trades reported the everpresent Macy's involvement in two 2007 features: the animated Bee Movie (with a lead voice by Jerry Seinfeld), about a honeybee who decides to sue mankind for its use of honey, and Wild Hogs, a farce with Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and John Travolta as a trio of Hell's Angels.
In 1997, William H. Macy married Felicity Huffman, with whom he appeared in Magnolia. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
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William H. Macy
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William H. Macy
| William H. Macy | |
|---|---|
 Macy at a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2012 |
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| Born | William Hall Macy, Jr. March 13, 1950 Miami, Florida, U.S. |
| Residence | Los Angeles, California Vermont[1] |
| Education | Allegany High School |
| Alma mater | Goddard College |
| Occupation | Actor, writer |
| Years active | 1971–present |
| Spouse | Felicity Huffman (1997–present) |
William Hall Macy, Jr. (born March 13, 1950) is an American actor and writer.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though he has appeared in summer action films as well.[2] Macy has described himself as "sort of a Middle American, WASPy, Lutheran kind of guy... Everyman".[3] He has won two Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award, being nominated for nine Emmy Awards and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards in total. He is also a three-time Golden Globe Award nominee.
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Early life
Macy was born in Miami, Florida, and grew up in Georgia and Maryland.[4] His father, William Hall Macy, Sr., was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal for flying a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber in World War II; he later ran a construction company in Atlanta and worked for Dun & Bradstreet, before taking over a Cumberland, Maryland-based insurance agency, when Macy was nine years old. His mother, Lois (née Overstreet), was a war widow who met Macy's father after her first husband died in 1943; Macy has described her as a "Southern belle".[5][6][7]
After graduating in 1968[2] from Allegany High School in Cumberland, Maryland, Macy studied veterinary medicine[2] at Bethany College in West Virginia. By his own admission a "wretched student," he transferred to Goddard College and became involved in theatre,[4] where he performed in ensemble productions of The Three Penny Opera, A Midsummer Night's Dream and a wide variety of contemporary and improvisational pieces. At Goddard, he first met playwright David Mamet.[4] After graduating in 1971, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, and got a job as a bartender to pay the rent. Within a year, he and David Mamet, among others, founded the successful St. Nicholas Theater Company,[4] where Macy originated roles in a number of Mamet's plays, such as American Buffalo and The Water Engine.[8]
Career
After spending time in Los Angeles, California, Macy moved to New York City in 1980. While living there, he had roles in over fifty Off Broadway and Broadway plays. One of his early on-screen roles was as a turtle named Socrates in the direct-to-video film The Boy Who Loved Trolls (1984), under the name W. H. Macy. He has appeared in numerous films that Mamet wrote and/or directed, including House of Games, Things Change, Homicide, Oleanna (reprising the role he originated in the play of the same name), Wag the Dog, State and Main, and Spartan.
Macy may be best known for his lead role in Fargo, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.[4] The role helped boost his career and recognizability, though at the expense of nearly confining him to a narrow typecast of a worried man down on his luck.[9] Other Macy roles of the 1990s and 2000s included Benny & Joon, Above Suspicion, Mr. Holland's Opus, Ghosts of Mississippi, Air Force One, Boogie Nights, Pleasantville, Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho, Happy, Texas, Mystery Men, Magnolia, Jurassic Park III, Focus, Panic, Welcome to Collinwood, Seabiscuit, The Cooler, and Sahara.
Macy has also had a number of roles on television, including a guest appearance on The Unit, as the President of the United States. In 2003, he won two Emmy Awards, one for starring in the lead role, and one as co-writer, of the made-for-TNT film Door to Door.[4] Door to Door is a drama based on the true story of Bill Porter, a door-to-door salesman in Portland, Oregon, born with cerebral palsy.[4] The film is composed of several stories, each taking up a whole period between commercials.
His work on ER and Sports Night has also been recognized with Emmy nominations. His character in ER, David Morgenstern, is responsible for a sage piece of advice that has been handed down throughout the series. In the pilot episode, when Juliana Margulies' character, nurse Carol Hathaway, is brought to the hospital with a drug overdose, Morgenstern tells Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) that he needs to "set the tone" to get the unit through the difficulty of treating one of its own. "You set the tone" is repeated several times in the series.
In a November 2003 interview with USA Today, Macy stated that he wanted to star in a big-budget action movie "for the money, for the security of a franchise like that". He serves as director-in-residence at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York, where he teaches a technique called Practical Aesthetics. A book describing the technique, A Practical Handbook for the Actor (ISBN 0-394-74412-8), is dedicated to Macy and Mamet.
In 2007, Macy starred in Wild Hogs, a film about middle-aged men reliving their youthful days by taking to the open road on their Harley-Davidson motorcycles from Cincinnati to the Pacific Coast. Despite being critically panned with a 14% "rotten" rating from Rotten Tomatoes, it was a financial success, grossing over $168 million.[10] In 2009, Macy completed filming on The Maiden Heist, a comedy that co-stars Morgan Freeman and Christopher Walken.
On June 23, 2008, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, would each receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the upcoming year. On January 13, 2009, Macy replaced Jeremy Piven in David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow on Broadway. Piven suddenly and unexpectedly dropped out of the play in December 2008 after he experienced health problems related to high mercury levels in his blood; Norbert Leo Butz covered the role from December 23, 2008, until Macy took over the part.[11] Dirty Girl, which stars Macy along with Juno Temple, Milla Jovovich, Mary Steenburgen and Tim McGraw, premiered September 12, 2010 at the Toronto Film Festival.
Shameless
In Summer 2010, Macy joined the Showtime pilot Shameless, as the main protagonist Frank Gallagher. The project ultimately went to series, with its first season premiering January 9, 2011. After a successful freshman season, the show was renewed for a second season, premiering January 8, 2012. Shameless has been renewed for a third season as well. Macy has received high critical acclaim for his performance.[12]
Personal life
Macy and actress Felicity Huffman have been married since September 6, 1997, and they have two daughters.
Macy and Huffman appeared at a rally for John Kerry in 2004.[13][14] Macy also plays the ukulele and is an avid woodturner, even appearing on the cover of the specialist magazine Fine Woodworking. He is a national ambassador for the United Cerebral Palsy Association.[15]
Filmography
References
- ^ Macy, William H. (February 17, 2006). "My Little Piece of Vermont". The New York Times. http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/travel/escapes/17macy.html. Retrieved 2011-11-14.
- ^ a b c Robert, Abele (July 2001). "Interview with William H. Macy". Maxim: 84.
- ^ Grady, Pam. "Making a Spectacle of Himself: William H. Macy reveals how donning a pair of glasses changes everything in his new drama, Focus". Reel.com. http://www.reel.com/reel.asp?node=features/interviews/whmacy.
- ^ a b c d e f g Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2004
- ^ "William H. Macy Biography – Yahoo! Movies". Movies.yahoo.com. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800019192/bio. Retrieved 2010-07-07.
- ^ "William H. Macy Biography (1950–)". FilmReference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/63/William-H-Macy.html.
- ^ "MACY'S ROOTS RUN DEEP INTO PASCAGOULA". Sun Herald. 2004-04-11. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BX&s_site=sunherald&p_multi=BX&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=101F89EE2659518D&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- ^ Harris, Andrew B. (1994). Broadway Theatre. Routledge. p. 98. ISBN 0-415-10520-X. http://books.google.com/?id=SqM46zulAGwC&pg=PT123&lpg=PT123&dq=%22st+nicholas+theater%22. Retrieved 2008-04-16. "By 1975, David Mamet and the St Nicholas Theater had settled in Chicago."
- ^ Gina McIntyre (2004-01-08). "William H. Macy, actor". Hollywoodreporter.com. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2072068. Retrieved 2010-07-07.[dead link]
- ^ Wild Hogs Rotten Tomatoes, Retrieved 07/28/10
- ^ Silverman, Stephen M. (December 18, 2008). "Jeremy Piven Abruptly Abandons Broadway Play". People Magazine. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20247585,00.html.
- ^ Stransky, Tanner (December 10, 2010), "William H. Macy takes it off". Entertainment Weekly. (1132):22
- ^ "All Star Concert Benefit for Presidential Candidate John Kerry". DailyCeleb.com. July 6, 2004. http://www.dailyceleb.com/production/index.php?view=event&eid=2272&cap=william+h.+macy.
- ^ "William H Macy's Federal Campaign Contribution Report". Newsmeat. http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_political_donations/William_H_Macy.php.
- ^ "UCP Announces William H. Macy as UCP Ambassador" (Press release). United Cerebral Palsy. 2003-01-14. http://www.ucp.org/ucp_generaldoc.cfm/1/3/12211/12211-12211/4258.
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