MARY STEENBURGEN (Nancy Huff)

MARY STEENBURGEN (Nancy Huff) won an Academy Award® for her role in Melvin and Howard. She recently wrapped production on Open Roads, starring Jeff Bridges and Justin Timberlake. Steenburgen also recently finished her work on Four Christmases, starting Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. She was last seen in The Brave One, starring Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard and directed by Neil Jordan. In 2006, she shot Nobel Son, starring opposite Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman. She also starred for two seasons on the Emmy-nominated CBS series, "Joan of Arcadia."

In February 2006, Steenburgen starred in the David Mamet directed play "Boston Marriage" at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. She was seen co-starring in the independent feature Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School. In 2003, she was seen in the CBS television film "It Must Be Love," co-starring her husband, Ted Danson. Steenburgen also co-starred in New Line Cinema's Elf, alongside Will Ferrell and James Caan. She has appeared in two films for director John Sayles, Sunshine State and Casa De Los Babys.

In 2002, Steenburgen was seen starring with Danson in a CBS television miniseries entitled "Talking to Heaven." They had previously worked together in 1996 on the critically acclaimed NBC miniseries "Gulliver's Travels" and in the 1994 feature film Pontiac Moon. In 2001, Steenburgen appeared alongside Kevin Kline in Irwin Winkler's Life as a House, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. She has constantly redefined herself through challenging roles in films such as Philadelphia, Parenthood and What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Steenburgen starred with Jon Voight and F. Murray Abraham in Robert Halmi's "Noah's Ark" for NBC and was also nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role in "About Sarah," a two-hour made-for-television movie for CBS in which she played a developmentally disabled adult.

Other films from Steenburgen's career include The Grass Harp, with Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Piper Laurie; Back to the Future III, Time After Time, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Cross Creek, One Magic Christmas, Dead of Winter, and End of the Line, in which she also served as the film's executive producer.

Steenburgen's career on the stage includes starring roles in "The Beginning of August," "Holiday," George Bernard Shaw's production of "Candida" at New York's Roundabout Theater, and, most recently, "Marvin's Room" at the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles.

In addition to her professional work, Steenburgen has devoted a great deal of time to causes close to her heart. In 1989, she and fellow actress Alfre Woodard founded Artists for a Free South Africa and in 1996, Steenburgen and Danson were presented with Liberty Hill Foundation's prestigious Upton Sinclair Award for their work in human rights and environmental causes.

Steenburgen is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, the daughter of a railroad conductor and a public high school secretary. She began her career at the age of 19 in New York. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband. They are the parents of four children: Kate, Lilly, Charlie, and Kat.