Blythe Danner

Blythe Danner
Danner at the Metropolitan Opera opening, September 22, 2008
Born	Blythe Katherine Danner (1943-02-03) February 3, 1943 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1965–present
Spouse(s)	Bruce Paltrow (m. 1969–2002; his death)
Children	Gwyneth Paltrow Jake Paltrow
Emmy Awards
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series 2005 Huff 2006 Huff
Tony Awards
Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play 1970 Butterflies Are Free

Blythe Katherine Danner (born February 3, 1943) is an American 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, performer-turned-director Dorothy (Dottie) Danner, and a half-brother, violin maker William Moennig. Danner is of part Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, and one of her great-grandmothers was born in Barbados (a White Barbadian).

Career

In 1972, Danner portrayed Martha Jefferson opposite Ken Howard's Thomas Jefferson in the movie version of 1776. Also that same year, she played a cuckolded wife 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. She was lawyer Amanda Bonner in television's "Adam's Rib," also opposite Ken Howard as Adam Bonner. She played the role of Zelda Fitzgerald in The Last of the Belles (1974).^{[citation needed]} 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 Blythe 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.

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

Emmy Awards

• Supporting Actress – 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

• To Kill a Clown (1972)
• 1776 (1972)
• Lovin' Molly (1974)
• Hearts of the West (1975)
• Futureworld (1976)
• The Great Santini (1979)
• Man, Woman and Child (1983)
• Guilty Conscience (1984) film
• Starring... the Actors (1984) (documentary)
• Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)
• Another Woman (1988)
• Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990)
• Alice (1990)
• The Prince of Tides (1991)
• Husbands and Wives (1992)
• Napoleon (1995) (voice)
• Homage (1995)
• To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
• The Myth of Fingerprints (1997)
• Mad City (1997)
• The Farmhouse (video title: Eye of the Storm) (1998)
• The Proposition (1998)
• No Looking Back (1998)
• The X-Files (1998)
• Forces of Nature (1999)
• The Love Letter (1999)
• Things I Forgot to Remember (1999)
• Meet the Parents (2000)
• The Invisible Circus (2001)
• The Quality of Light (2003)
• Three Days of Rain (2003)
• Sylvia (2003)
• Howl's Moving Castle (2004) (voice in English dubbed version)
• Meet the Fockers (2004)
• Stolen (2006) (documentary)
• The Last Kiss (2006)
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008)
• Side by Each (2008)
• Waiting for Forever (2009)
• The Lightkeepers (2009)
• Little Fockers (2010)
• Paul (2011)
• What's Your Number? (2011)
• Detachment (2011)
• The Lucky One (2012)
• Hello I Must Be Going

Television work

• George M! (1970)
• Dr. Cook's Garden (1971)
• Columbo: Etude in Black (1972)
• Adam's Rib (1973)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Last of the Belles (1974)
• Sidekicks (1974)
• M*A*S*H (1976)
• Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1976)
• A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story (1978)
• Are You in the House Alone? (1978)
• Too Far to Go (1979)
• You Can't Take It with You (1979)
• Inside the Third Reich (1982) (miniseries)
• In Defense of Kids (1983)
• Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (1984)
• Guilty Conscience (1985)
• Tattingers (1988 – 1989)
• Money, Power, Murder (1989)
• Judgment (1990)
• Never Forget (1991)
• Getting Up and Going Home (1992)
• Cruel Doubt (1992) (miniseries)
• Lincoln (1992) (miniseries) (voice only)
• Tracey Ullman Takes On New York (1993)
• Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1994) (miniseries)
• Leave of Absence (1994)
• The West (1996) (miniseries) (voice only)
• Thomas Jefferson (documentary) (voice only)
• A Call to Remember (1997)
• From the Earth to the Moon (1998) (narrator in episode 12)
• Saint Maybe (1998)
• Murder She Purred: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery (1998) (voice only)
• Mark Twain (2001) (documentary) (voice only)
• Will & Grace (recurring cast member from 2001 – 2006)
• We Were the Mulvaneys (2002)
• Presidio Med (2002 – 2003)
• Huff (2004–2006)
• Pretty/Handsome (2008) (unsold pilot)
• Medium episode "A Taste of Her Own Medicine" (2 March 2009)
• Nurse Jackie (2009)
• Up All Night (2011)

Theater work

• The Glass Menagerie (1965) (Boston)
• The Service of Joseph Axminster (1965–1966) (Boston)
• The Way Out of the Way In (1965–1966) (Boston)
• The Knack (1965–1966) (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 – June 8, 1968) (Broadway)
• Up Eden (1968) (Off-Broadway)
• Lovers (July 25 – November 30, 1968) (Broadway) (standby for Fionnuala Flanagan)
• Someone's Comin' Hungry (1969) (Off-Broadway)
• The Miser (May 8 – June 21, 1969) (Broadway)
• Butterflies Are Free (October 21, 1969 – July 2, 1972) (Broadway)
• Major Barbara (1971) (Los Angeles)
• Twelfth Night (March 2 – 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 – May 31, 1980) (Broadway)
• The Philadelphia Story (November 14, 1980 – January 4, 1981) (Broadway)
• Blithe Spirit (March 31 – June 28, 1987) (Broadway)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (March 20 – 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 (1995–1996) (Off-Broadway)
• The Deep Blue Sea (March 26 – May 10, 1998) (Broadway)
• Ancestral Voices (1999) (staged reading) (Off-Broadway)
• Tonight (2000) (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
• Follies (April 5 – 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)

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