Blythe Katherine Danner (born February 3, 1943) is an American actress of film, television, and stage. She is known for the television role of Marilyn Truman, mother of title character Will, in the sitcom Will & Grace, and for co-starring opposite Robert De Niro in the three Meet the Parents franchise films. She is also a Tony Award winning stage actress. She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.
Early life
Danner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Katharine (née Kile) and Harry Earl Danner, a bank executive. She has a brother, opera singer/actor Harry Danner; a sister-in-law, performer-turned-director Dorothy (Dottie) Danner; and a half-brother, violin maker William Moennig. Danner has Pennsylvania Dutch (hollander), and some English and Irish, ancestry; her maternal grandmother was a German immigrant, and one of her paternal great-grandmothers was born in Barbados. Danner graduated from the George School, a Quaker high school located in Newtown, Pennsylvania in 1960.
Career
A graduate of Bard College, Danner's first roles included the 1967 musical Mata Hari (closed out of town), and the 1968 off-Broadway production, Summertree. Her early Broadway appearances included roles in Cyrano de Bergerac (1968) and The Miser (1969). She won a Best Supporting Actress Tony playing a free-spirited divorcee in Butterflies Are Free (1969).
In 1972, Danner portrayed Martha Jefferson opposite Ken Howard's Thomas Jefferson in the movie version of 1776. That same year, she played a wife whose husband has been unfaithful opposite Peter Falk and John Cassavetes in the Columbo episode "Etude in Black".
Her earliest starring film role was opposite Alan Alda in To Kill a Clown (1972). Danner appeared in the episode of M*A*S*H entitled "The More I See You", playing the love interest of Alda's character Hawkeye Pierce. She played lawyer Amanda Bonner in television's Adam's Rib, also opposite Ken Howard as Adam Bonner. She played Zelda Fitzgerald in F. Scott Fitzgerald and 'The Last of the Belles' (1974). She was the eponymous heroine in the film Lovin' Molly (1974) (directed by Sidney Lumet). She appeared in Futureworld, playing Tracy Ballard with co-star Peter Fonda (1976). In the 1982 TV movie Inside the Third Reich, she played the wife of Albert Speer. In the film version of Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical play Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986), she portrayed a middle-aged Jewish mother. She has appeared in two films based on the novels of Pat Conroy, The Great Santini (1979) and The Prince of Tides (1991), as well as two television movies adapted from books by Anne Tyler, Saint Maybe and Back When We Were Grownups, both for the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Danner appeared opposite Robert De Niro in the 2000 comedy hit Meet the Parents, and its sequels, Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers.
From 2001 to 2006, she regularly appeared on Will & Grace as Will Truman's mother Marilyn. From 2004 to 2006, she starred in the TV series Huff. In 2005, she was nominated for three Emmy Awards: for her work on Will & Grace, Huff and Back When We Were Grownups. Emmy host Ellen DeGeneres poked fun at Danner during the award ceremony, saying that Danner should not be nervous because she was almost certain to win at least one Emmy, which she did, for Huff. In July 2006, she won a second consecutive Emmy award for Huff. For 25 years, she has been a regular performer at the Williamstown Summer Theater Festival, where she also serves on the Board of Directors.
In 2006, Danner was awarded an inaugural Katharine Hepburn Medal by Bryn Mawr College's Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center.
Environmental activism
Danner has been involved in environmental issues such as recycling and conservation for over 30 years. She has been active with INFORM, Inc., is on the Board of Environmental Advocates of New York and the Board of Directors of the Environmental Media Association, and won the 2002 EMA Board of Directors Ongoing Commitment Award. In 2011, Danner joined Moms Clean Air Force, to help call on parents to join in the fight against toxic air pollution.
Health care activism
After the death of her husband Bruce Paltrow from oral cancer, she became involved with the Oral Cancer Foundation, a national 501(c)3 non profit charity. In 2005, she filmed a public service announcement that played on TV stations around the country about the risks associated with oral cancer, and through that shared the personal pain associated with the loss of her husband publicly to further awareness of the disease and the need for early detection. She continues to donate her time to the foundation, and has appeared on morning talk shows, and has done interviews in high profile magazines such as People to further public awareness of the disease and its risk factors. Through The Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer Fund, administered by the Oral Cancer Foundation, she continues to raise awareness and funding for oral cancer issues, particularly those involving communities in which disparities in health care exist. She is now appearing in commercials for Prolia a brand of Denosumab for injection.
Personal life
Danner is the widow of producer/director Bruce Paltrow, who died from complications of pneumonia while battling oral cancer in 2002, and the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow. Danner first co-starred with her daughter in 1992 in the TV movie Cruel Doubt and then again in the 2003 film Sylvia playing Aurelia Plath, mother to Gwyneth Paltrow's title role as Sylvia Plath.
Awards
- Primetime Emmy Awards
- Outstanding Supporting Actress â€" Drama Series
2005 Huff
2006 Huff
- Tony Awards
- Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play
1970 Butterflies Are Free - Theatre World Award
1968The Miser
- Other Awards
- Women in Film Lucy Award
2004
Filmography
Film
Television
Theater work
- The Glass Menagerie (1965) (Boston)
- The Service of Joseph Axminster (1965â€"1966) (Boston)
- The Way Out of the Way In (1965â€"1966) (Boston)
- The Knack (1965â€"1966) (Boston)
- The Infantry (1966) (Off-Broadway)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1967) (Providence, Rhode Island)
- Three Sisters (1967) (Providence)
- Mata Hari (1967) (Washington DC, closed out of town before Broadway opening)
- Summertree (1968) (Off-Broadway)
- Cyrano de Bergerac (April 25 â€" June 8, 1968) (Broadway)
- Up Eden (1968) (Off-Broadway)
- Lovers (July 25 â€" November 30, 1968) (Broadway) (standby for Fionnuala Flanagan)
- Someone's Comin' Hungry (1969) (Off-Broadway)
- The Miser (May 8 â€" June 21, 1969) (Broadway)
- Butterflies Are Free (October 21, 1969 â€" July 2, 1972) (Broadway)
- Major Barbara (1971) (Los Angeles)
- Twelfth Night (March 2 â€" April 8, 1972) (Broadway)
- The Seagull (1974) (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
- Ring Round the Moon (1975) (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
- The New York Idea (1977) (Brooklyn Academy of Music)
- Children of the Sun (1979) (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
- Betrayal (January 5 â€" May 31, 1980) (Broadway)
- The Philadelphia Story (November 14, 1980 â€" January 4, 1981) (Broadway)
- Blithe Spirit (March 31 â€" June 28, 1987) (Broadway)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (March 20 â€" May 22, 1988) (Broadway)
- Much Ado About Nothing (1988) (New York Shakespeare Festival)
- Love Letters (1989) (Off-Broadway)
- Picnic (1991) (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
- The Seagull (1994) (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
- Sylvia (1995) (Off-Broadway)
- Moonlight (1995â€"1996) (Off-Broadway)
- The Deep Blue Sea (March 26 â€" May 10, 1998) (Broadway)
- Ancestral Voices (1999) (staged reading) (Off-Broadway)
- Tonight (2000) (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
- Follies (April 5 â€" July 14, 2001) (Broadway)
- Little Murders (2001) (staged reading) (Off-Broadway)
- Carousel (2002) (concert performance) (Carnegie Hall)
- The Chekhov Cycle (2002) (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
- All About Eve (2003) (staged reading) (Los Angeles)
- " Nice Work If You Can Get It" (2012-2013) (Broadway)
- The Country House (2014) (Broadway)
References
External links
- Blythe Danner at the Internet Broadway Database
- Blythe Danner at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Blythe Danner at the Internet Movie Database
- Stage biography from Playbill website
- 2003 article from the Environmental Media Association
Interviews
- Blythe Danner interview: Leading Ladies Working in the Theatre video from American Theatre Wing, December 2006
- Working in the Theatre: Performance video seminar at American Theatre Wing, April 1998
- Working in the Theatre: Performance video seminar at American Theatre Wing, April 1988