Mary McDonnell

Mary McDonnell, a two-time Oscar(r),-nominated actress, is most well famous for her performance on screen in both traditional and contemporary roles. She also has a long history of roles both on stage and screen. Mary Eileen McDonnell was born on April 28, 1952 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to Eileen (Mundy) and John McDonnell, a computer consultant, both from Irish heritage. Raised in Ithaca, New York, she graduated from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Fredonia. She later attended the drama school and was accepted into the famous Long Wharf Theatre Company on the East Coast. At the age of 22, she was when she scored her first movie role in Dances with Wolves (1990) in which she was "Stands with a Fist", a Sioux Indian woman who is white. Her first Academy Award nomination was for this role. McDonnell's film credits include Lawrence Kasdan films Grand Canyon (1991) and Mumford (1999) (opposite the likes of veteran actors such as Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, and Ben Kingsley); Roland Emmerich's Independence Day (1996) (starring Will Smith); acclaimed art house cult hit Donnie Darko (2001) as well as Margin Call (2011) (opposite Kevin Spacey), which brought her the Robert Altman Award at the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards. On the smaller screen, McDonnell starred in four seasons on the Syfy Network's award-winning series Battlestar Galactica (2004) in her critically praised performance as President Laura Roslin. She garnered an Emmy nomination for her regular guest role in the TV show ER (1994). She plays Captain Sharon Raydor on the TNT's hit drama series Major Crimes (2012), the sequel to The Closer (2005), where McDonnell took on the role for the first time and earned an primetime Emmy(r) nomination. For her role as an actress with paraplegia in John Sayles’s critically acclaimed film Passion Fish (1992), she was awarded a Best Actress Academy Award(r) nomination, as well as a Golden Globe nomination.