Helen Hunt
Helen Hunt | |
|---|---|
 Hunt in 2011 | |
| Born | Helen Elizabeth Hunt June 15, 1963 Culver City, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1973–present |
| Spouse | Hank Azaria (1999–2000) |
| Partner | Matthew Carnahan (2001–present) |
| Children | 1 |
Helen Elizabeth Hunt (born June 15, 1963) is an American actress, film director, and screenwriter. She starred in the sitcom Mad About You for seven years, and played single mother Carol Connelly in the 1997 romantic comedy film As Good as It Gets, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Some of her other notable films include Twister, Cast Away, What Women Want, Pay It Forward, and The Sessions. She made her directorial debut in 2007 with Then She Found Me. In addition to her Oscar, Hunt has won four Emmy awards, four Golden Globe awards, and two Screen Actors Guild awards.
Early life
Hunt was born in Culver City, California. Her mother, Jane Elizabeth (née Novis), worked as a photographer, and her father, Gordon E. Hunt, is a film director and acting coach.[1] Her uncle, Peter H. Hunt, is also a director. Her Iowa-born maternal grandmother, Dorothy (Anderson) Fries, was a voice coach.[2] Hunt's paternal grandmother was from a German Jewish family, while Hunt's other grandparents were of English descent (her maternal grandfather was born in England).[3][4][5] When she was three, Hunt's family moved to New York City, where her father directed theatre (Hunt attended plays as a child several times a week).[6] Hunt studied ballet, and briefly attended UCLA.[6][7][8]
Career
Hunt began working as a child actress in the 1970s.[6] Her early roles included an appearance as Murray Slaughter's daughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, alongside Lindsay Wagner in an episode of The Bionic Woman, an appearance in an episode of Ark II called Omega, and a regular role in the television series The Swiss Family Robinson.[6] She appeared as a marijuana-smoking classmate on an episode of The Facts of Life. Hunt also played a young woman who, while on PCP, jumps out of a second-story window, in a 1982 TV movie called Desperate Lives (a scene which she mocked during a Saturday Night Live monologue in 1994).[9] That same year, Hunt was cast on the ABC sitcom It Takes Two, which lasted a single season. In the mid-1980s, she had a recurring role on St. Elsewhere as Clancy Williams, the girlfriend of Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison. She played Jennie in the television movie Bill: On His Own, co-starring Mickey Rooney. She also starred in the 1985 film Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, with Sarah Jessica Parker and Shannen Doherty.
In the 1990s, after playing the lead female role in the short-lived My Life and Times, Hunt starred in the series Mad About You, winning Emmy Awards for her performances in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999.[6] Hunt directed several episodes of Mad About You, including the series finale. Her big-screen directorial debut came with the film Then She Found Me, in which she also starred, with Colin Firth and Matthew Broderick.[1] In 1998, Hunt won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Carol Connelly in the movie As Good as It Gets; the character is a waitress and single mother who finds herself falling in love with Melvin Udall, an obsessive-compulsive romance novelist played by Jack Nicholson.[6] After winning the Academy Award, she took time off from movie work to play Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, at Lincoln Center in New York.[10] In 2000, Hunt starred in four films: Dr. T & the Women, with Richard Gere; Pay It Forward, with Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment; What Women Want, with Mel Gibson; and Cast Away, with Tom Hanks.[6] In 2003, she returned to Broadway in Yasmina Reza's Life x 3.[10] In 2006, Hunt appeared in the ensemble cast film Bobby alongside Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone and William H. Macy. In 2011, in the movie Soul Surfer, she played the mother of the Hawaiian-born champion surfer Bethany Hamilton, on whose life the movie was based. In 2012, she starred alongside John Hawkes and William H. Macy in The Sessions as sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene. The movie and her performance were very well reviewed and earned her several award nominations, including an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
She owns a production company with Connie Tavel, Hunt/Tavel Productions under Sony Pictures Entertainment.[1]
Personal life
Hunt started dating actor Hank Azaria in 1994 and they married in 1999, only to get divorced 17 months later (July 17, 1999 – December 18, 2000).[1] She has been in a relationship with producer/writer/director Matthew Carnahan since 2001. They have a daughter, Makena Lei Gordon Carnahan, born on May 13, 2004.[1][11]
Filmography
Accolades
Hunt has been recognized extensively in her career. In 1998 she won a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award and an Emmy Award in the same year. Hunt was nominated for an Emmy Award for lead actress in a comedy seven years in a row, from 1993 through 1999, winning in the last four years.[12]
References
- ^ a b c d e Helen Hunt at the TCM Movie Database
- ^ http://articles.latimes.com/1991-09-21/entertainment/ca-2224_1_helen-hunt
- ^ http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/celeb/hunt.htm
- ^ Robinson, George (2008-02-13). "Then She Found Me'". The New York Jewish Week. Archived from the original on 2009-01-15. Retrieved 2008-04-24.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Nick Johnstone, "How Helen Hunt did God", The Jewish Chronicle, August 28, 2008.
- ^ a b c d e f g Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2001
- ^ Helen Hunt Biography – Yahoo! Movies
- ^ Cohn, Robert A. (2007-11-07). "Paul Reiser kicks off book fest". St. Louis Jewish Light. Archived from the original on 2007-11-09. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Helen Hunt's Monologue
- ^ a b Helen Hunt at the Internet Broadway Database
- ^ "Helen Hunt: It's a Girl!". E! Online. May 2004. Archived from the original on 2004-05-27.
- ^ Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Emmys.com.
External links
- Helen Hunt at IMDb
- Helen Hunt at the Internet Broadway Database
- Please use a more specific IOBDB template. See the template documentation for available templates.
- Helen Hunt at AllMovie
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
- 1963 births
- 20th-century American actresses
- 21st-century American actresses
- Actresses from California
- American child actresses
- American film actresses
- American film directors
- American people of English descent
- American people of German-Jewish descent
- American television actresses
- American television directors
- American voice actresses
- Best Actress Academy Award winners
- Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
- Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (television) winners
- California State University, Los Angeles alumni
- Women television directors
- Film directors from California
- Independent Spirit Award winners
- Living people
- Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners
- Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Screen Actors Guild Award winners
- Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
- People from Culver City, California
- American women film directors