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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.


