Mary Nell Steenburgen (; born February 8, 1953) is an American actress, comedian, singer, and songwriter. After studying at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1970s, she made her professional acting debut in the 1978 Western comedy film Goin' South. Steenburgen went on to earn critical acclaim for her role in 1979 Time After Time and Jonathan Demme's 1980 comedy-drama film Melvin and Howard, for which she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Steenburgen received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Miloš Forman's drama film Ragtime (1981). Her other films include A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Cross Creek (1983), Back to the Future Part III (1990), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Nixon (1995), The Brave One (2007), Last Vegas (2013), A Walk in the Woods (2015), Book Club (2018), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023). She also became known for playing mothers in a string of comedy films such as Parenthood (1989), Elf (2003), Step Brothers (2008), Four Christmases (2008), The Proposal (2009), Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), The Help (2011), and Happiest Season (2020).
She received nominations for a BAFTA TV Award for the miniseries Tender Is the Night (1985) and a Primetime Emmy Award for the television film The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988). Steenburgen has worked as a singer-songwriter for numerous films, in some of which she starred. For her song "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)", written for the musical film Wild Rose (2018), she received the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song.
Early life
Steenburgen was born February 8, 1953, in Newport, Arkansas, to Nellie Mae (née Wall), a school-board secretary, and Maurice Hoffman Steenburgen, a freight-train conductor who worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. She has a sister, Nancy Kelly (née Steenburgen), a teacher. In 1971, she enrolled at Hendrix College to study drama. She subsequently traveled to Dallas at the suggestion of her drama teacher where she successfully auditioned for New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse.
Career
Steenburgen moved to Manhattan in 1972 after the Neighborhood Playhouse offered her an opportunity to study acting. She worked as a server at The Magic Pan and for Doubleday while studying under William Esper.
Film career
Steenburgen's break came when she was discovered by Jack Nicholson in the reception room of Paramount Pictures's New York office and was cast as the female lead in his second directorial work, the 1978 Western Goin' South.
Steenburgen had a leading role in the 1979 film Time After Time, for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress. She played a modern woman who falls in love with author H. G. Wells, played by Malcolm McDowell, whom she married the following year.
In her third film, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1980 film Melvin and Howard. She played Lynda Dummar, the wife of Melvin Dummar, a trucker and aspiring singer who claimed to have befriended reclusive eccentric Howard Hughes. Another notable film appearance came in the well-received 1983 film Cross Creek, in which she portrayed Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling. In 1985, she starred in the film One Magic Christmas as someone who falls on devastating times at Christmas, only to rely on a miracle to save her family. In 1989, she played Karen Buckman in Parenthood. In Back to the Future Part III (1990) Steenburgen played Clara Clayton, a school teacher who falls in love with Doc Brown. She was persuaded to play the role by her children, as well as by fans of the Back to the Future films, and reprised the role by providing the character's voice in Back to the Future: The Animated Series.
Other performances have been in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), as a woman who is having an affair with the title character; My Summer Story (1994), as the mother of Ralphie Parker (the sequel to A Christmas Story); the role of Hannah Nixon in the Oliver Stone biopic, Nixon (1995); and the Will Ferrell 2003 comedy Elf, as a woman who discovers that her husband is the father of one of Santa's elves.
She has appeared in the comedy films Step Brothers (2008), playing the mother of Will Ferrell's character; Four Christmases (2008); and The Proposal (2009).
Dirty Girl, which featured Steenburgen, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2010. She also appeared in the critically acclaimed film The Help (2011) and had a featured role as a lounge singer, who is the romantic interest in a love triangle, in the 2013 comedy Last Vegas.