Elizabeth Perkins
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Ann Perkins is an American actress. Her film roles have included Big
Big
Big is a 1988 romantic comedy film directed by Penny Marshall and stars Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin, a young boy who makes a wish "to be big" to a magical fortune-telling machine and is then aged to adulthood overnight...

, The Flintstones
The Flintstones (film)
The Flintstones is a 1994 American live-action comedy film based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon television series of the same name about a Stone-Age man, his family and his best friend. The film was directed by Brian Levant, written by Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein and Steven E...

, Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street (1994 film)
Miracle on 34th Street is a 1994 American fantasy film directed by Les Mayfield. It is the fourth remake of the original 1947 film. Like the original, this film was released by 20th Century Fox...

, About Last Night..., and Avalon
Avalon (1990 film)
Avalon is a feature film directed by Barry Levinson. It is a mostly autobiographical story of a family of Polish-Jewish immigrants to the United States who settle in Baltimore, Maryland, at the beginning of the 20th century. The movie follows the family as they grow, become more prosperous, and...

. She is perhaps best known for her role as Celia Hodes in the Showtime series Weeds
Weeds (TV series)
Weeds is an American television comedy created by Jenji Kohan and produced by Tilted Productions in association with Lionsgate Television. The central character is Nancy Botwin , a widowed mother of two boys who begins selling marijuana to support her family after her husband dies suddenly of a...

.

Early life

Perkins was born in Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

, New York City, the daughter of Jo Williams, a drug treatment counselor and concert pianist, and James Perkins, a farmer, writer, and businessman. Her paternal grandparents were Greek immigrants from Salonika who anglicized their surname from "Pisperikos" to "Perkins" when they emigrated to the United States. Perkins was raised in Colrain
Colrain, Massachusetts
Colrain is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,813 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area.- History :Colrain was first settled in 1735 as "Boston Township No...

, Massachusetts; her parents divorced in 1963. She began working in theatre with Arena Civic Theatre, a non-profit community theatre group based out of Greenfield, Massachusetts
Greenfield, Massachusetts
Greenfield is a city in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 17,456 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Franklin County. Greenfield is home to Greenfield Community College, the Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra, and the Franklin County Fair...

. Perkins attended Northfield Mount Hermon School, an elite preparatory school, and then spent three years in Chicago studying acting at the Goodman School of Drama
Goodman School of Drama
The Goodman School of Drama is now renamed The Theatre School at DePaul University. Founded in 1925 in Chicago, Illinois, a city with a rich theatrical heritage, the Goodman School became part of DePaul University in 1978 and was renamed The Theatre School at DePaul University in 1982...

. In 1984, she made her theatrical debut on Broadway in Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...

's Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon, the first chapter in what is known as his Eugene trilogy. It precedes Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound.-Characters:*Eugene Morris Jerome, almost 15...

and afterward, worked in a number of ensemble companies, including The New York Shakespeare Festival and the Steppenwolf Theater.

Career

She was listed as one of the 12 "Promising New Actors of 1986" in John Willis' Screen World, and has since landed numerous film roles. Perkins made her film debut in 1986 in Edward Zwick
Edward Zwick
Edward M. Zwick is an American filmmaker and film producer noted for his epic films about social and racial issues. He has been described as a "throwback to an earlier era, an extremely cerebral director whose movies consistently feature fully rounded characters, difficult moral issues, and plots...

's About Last Night... and had a career breakthrough co-starring with Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

 in Big
Big
Big is a 1988 romantic comedy film directed by Penny Marshall and stars Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin, a young boy who makes a wish "to be big" to a magical fortune-telling machine and is then aged to adulthood overnight...

. She received critical acclaim for her performance in Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson is an American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. His films include Good Morning, Vietnam, Sleepers and Rain Man.-Early life:...

's Avalon
Avalon (1990 film)
Avalon is a feature film directed by Barry Levinson. It is a mostly autobiographical story of a family of Polish-Jewish immigrants to the United States who settle in Baltimore, Maryland, at the beginning of the 20th century. The movie follows the family as they grow, become more prosperous, and...

, and was a standout opposite William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...

 in The Doctor
The Doctor (film)
The Doctor is a 1991 American drama film directed by Randa Haines and starring William Hurt as a doctor who undergoes a transformation in his views about life, illness and human relationships. It is loosely based on the book A Taste Of My Own Medicine....

(1991), receiving critical acclaim for her performance as a terminal
Terminal illness
Terminal illness is a medical term popularized in the 20th century to describe a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and that is reasonably expected to result in the death of the patient within a short period of time. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as...

 cancer patient.

She played Wilma Flintstone
Wilma Flintstone
Wilma Anna Flintstone is a fictional character in the television animated series The Flintstones. She was the red-headed wife of caveman Fred Flintstone, daughter of Pearl Slaghoople, mother of Pebbles Flintstone and a grandmother...

 in the 1994 live-action comedy The Flintstones
The Flintstones (film)
The Flintstones is a 1994 American live-action comedy film based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon television series of the same name about a Stone-Age man, his family and his best friend. The film was directed by Brian Levant, written by Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein and Steven E...

.

In 1993, Perkins appeared in the television project For Their Own Good. She later starred in the comedy series Battery Park
Battery Park (TV series)
Battery Park is an American comedy television series starring Elizabeth Perkins and Justin Louis. The series premiered March 23, 2000 on NBC...

and the HBO movie If These Walls Could Talk 2
If These Walls Could Talk 2
If These Walls Could Talk 2 is an Emmy Award-winning 2000 television movie in the United States, broadcast on HBO. It follows three separate storylines about lesbian couples in three different time periods...

, and has appeared in television and films including the 1994 remake
Miracle on 34th Street (1994 film)
Miracle on 34th Street is a 1994 American fantasy film directed by Les Mayfield. It is the fourth remake of the original 1947 film. Like the original, this film was released by 20th Century Fox...

 of Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street is a 1947 Christmas film written by George Seaton from a story by Valentine Davies, directed by George Seaton and starring Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn...

and 2000's 28 Days
28 Days (film)
28 Days is a 2000 American drama film directed by Betty Thomas. Sandra Bullock plays Gwen Cummings, a newspaper columnist obliged to enter rehabilitation for alcoholism. The film costars Viggo Mortensen, Dominic West, Elizabeth Perkins, Steve Buscemi and Diane Ladd.-Plot:Gwen Cummings borrows the...

starring as Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock is an Academy Award winning American actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. She continued with films such as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House,...

's sister. Perkins also had a small role in the 2003 film Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...

, she was the voice of a clownfish who was the wife of Marlin and mother of Nemo and was killed by a barracuda
Barracuda
The barracuda is a ray-finned fish known for its large size and fearsome appearance. Its body is long, fairly compressed, and covered with small, smooth scales. Some species could reach up to 1.8m in length and 30 cm in width...

 at the beginning of the film. Perkins appeared as a psychiatrist in the 2005 suspense thriller, The Ring Two
The Ring Two
The Ring Two is a 2005 American psychological horror film, and a sequel to the 2002 film The Ring, which was a remake of the 1998 Japanese film Ring...

, starring Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts
Naomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! , Brides of Christ , and Home and Away . Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone...

.

From 2005 to 2009, Perkins played Celia Hodes, an alcoholic and image-obsessed PTA
PTA
-Organizations:* Andalusia Technology Park , a science park in Málaga, Spain* Parent-Teacher Association* Pakistan Telecommunication Authority* Passenger transport authority, a United Kingdom local government authority...

 mother, alongside Mary-Louise Parker
Mary-Louise Parker
Mary-Louise Parker is an American actress, known for her current lead role on Showtime's television series Weeds portraying Nancy Botwin, for which she has received several nominations and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 2006...

 and Justin Kirk
Justin Kirk
Justin Kirk is an American stage and film actor. He is known for playing Prior Walter in Mike Nichols's screen adaptation of Angels in America and for his portrayal of Andy Botwin in Showtime's Weeds.-Early life and education:Kirk was born in Salem, Oregon, son of a...

 on the Showtime series Weeds
Weeds (TV series)
Weeds is an American television comedy created by Jenji Kohan and produced by Tilted Productions in association with Lionsgate Television. The central character is Nancy Botwin , a widowed mother of two boys who begins selling marijuana to support her family after her husband dies suddenly of a...

. For her work on Weeds, Perkins received two Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a TV Series, Miniseries or Made for TV Motion Picture (in 2006 and 2007). She was also nominated three times for an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Weeds. At a screening of the season 2 finale of Weeds, at the Museum of TV and Radio on October 25, 2006, Perkins said that she considers Celia Hodes her favorite role in her career. On May 6, 2010, she announced that the fifth season of Weeds was her last despite the cliffhanger her character had in the season finale.

Personal life

Perkins' first husband was Chicago director Terry Kinney
Terry Kinney
Terry Kinney is an American actor and theatre director, and is a founding member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry.-Early life:...

; the couple divorced. She has one daughter, Hannah Phillips, born in 1991. In 2000, she married her present husband, Argentinian-born cinematographer Julio Macat, gaining three stepsons: Maximillian, Alexander, and Andreas. In 2005, at the age of 44, she learned that she had latent autoimmune diabetes
Latent autoimmune diabetes
Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adults , also known as, Diabetes Type 1.5, is a term coined by Tuomi et al. in 1993 to describe slow-onset Type 1 autoimmune diabetes in adults...

, a form of type I diabetes that is most often diagnosed in middle age.

Awards and nominations

Primetime Emmy Awards
  • 2006 Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Weeds
    Weeds (TV series)
    Weeds is an American television comedy created by Jenji Kohan and produced by Tilted Productions in association with Lionsgate Television. The central character is Nancy Botwin , a widowed mother of two boys who begins selling marijuana to support her family after her husband dies suddenly of a...

    (nominated)
  • 2007 Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Weeds (nominated)
  • 2009 Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Weeds (nominated)

Golden Globe Awards
  • 2006 Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series, Mini-series, or TV Movie for Weeds (nominated)
  • 2007 Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series, Mini-series, or TV Movie for Weeds (nominated)

Satellite Awards
  • 2005 Best Actress in a Comedy Series for Weeds (nominated)
  • 2006 Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-series, or TV Movie for Weeds (nominated)

Screen Actors Guild Awards
  • 2007 Best Acting Ensemble in a Comedy Series for Weeds (nominated)
  • 2009 Best Acting Ensemble in a Comedy Series for Weeds (nominated)

Filmography

Year Film Role Notes
1986 About Last Night... Joan
1987 From the Hip
From the Hip (film)
From the Hip, is a 1987 comedy film directed by Bob Clark from a screenplay by Bob Clark and David E. Kelley. The film stars Judd Nelson, Elizabeth Perkins and John Hurt. Nelson's performance earned him a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actor....

Jo Ann
1988 Sweet Hearts Dance
Sweet Hearts Dance
Sweet Hearts Dance is a 1988 American comedy drama film directed by Robert Greenwald. The screenplay by Ernest Thompson centers on two small town couples, one married for several years and the other at the beginning of their relationship....

Adie Nims
Big
Big
Big is a 1988 romantic comedy film directed by Penny Marshall and stars Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin, a young boy who makes a wish "to be big" to a magical fortune-telling machine and is then aged to adulthood overnight...

Susan
1990 Avalon
Avalon (1990 film)
Avalon is a feature film directed by Barry Levinson. It is a mostly autobiographical story of a family of Polish-Jewish immigrants to the United States who settle in Baltimore, Maryland, at the beginning of the 20th century. The movie follows the family as they grow, become more prosperous, and...

Ann Kaye
Love at Large
Love at Large
Love at Large is a 1990 romance and mystery film directed by Alan Rudolph and starring Tom Berenger.-Plot:Set in a present that feels more like the past, Harry Dobbs is a private detective surrounded by mysterious and dangerous dames...

Stella Wynkowski
1991 The Doctor
The Doctor (film)
The Doctor is a 1991 American drama film directed by Randa Haines and starring William Hurt as a doctor who undergoes a transformation in his views about life, illness and human relationships. It is loosely based on the book A Taste Of My Own Medicine....

June Ellis
He Said, She Said
He Said, She Said
He Said, She Said is a 1991 romantic comedy starring Kevin Bacon, Elizabeth Perkins, Nathan Lane and Sharon Stone.-Synopsis:It is the story of the relationship between journalists Dan Hanson and Lorie Bryer twice – once from each perspective. The man's story was directed by Ken Kwapis and the...

Lorie Bryer
1993 Indian Summer
Indian Summer (1993 film)
Indian Summer is a 1993 comedy drama film written and directed by Mike Binder. The movie was filmed and set on-location at Camp Tamakwa, a summer camp located in Ontario, Canada, where Binder himself had attended in his childhood...

Jennifer Morton
1994 Miracle on 34th Street
Miracle on 34th Street (1994 film)
Miracle on 34th Street is a 1994 American fantasy film directed by Les Mayfield. It is the fourth remake of the original 1947 film. Like the original, this film was released by 20th Century Fox...

Dorey Walker
The Flintstones
The Flintstones (film)
The Flintstones is a 1994 American live-action comedy film based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon television series of the same name about a Stone-Age man, his family and his best friend. The film was directed by Brian Levant, written by Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein and Steven E...

Wilma Flintstone
1995 Moonlight and Valentino
Moonlight and Valentino
Moonlight and Valentino is a 1995 American dramedy film directed by David Anspaugh. The screenplay by Ellen Simon is based on her semi-autobiographical play of the same title staged at Duke University six years earlier.-Plot:...

Rebecca Trager Lott
The American President Uncredited
1997 Cloned Skye Weston TV Movie
Rescuers: Stories of Courage: Two Women Gertruda Babilinska TV Movie
1998 I'm Losing You (film)
I'm Losing You (film)
I'm Losing You is a 1998 American film written and directed by Bruce Wagner. The film starred Andrew McCarthy and is an adaptation of the 1996 novel of the same name.-Plot:...

Aubrey Wicker
1998 From the Earth to the

Moon
Marilyn Lovell TV Miniseries
1999 Crazy in Alabama
Crazy in Alabama
Crazy in Alabama is a 1999 comedy-drama film directed by Antonio Banderas, written by Mark Childress , and starring Melanie Griffith as an abused wife who heads to California to become a movie star while her nephew back in Alabama has to deal with a racially-motivated murder involving a corrupt...

Joan Blake
2000 28 Days
28 Days (film)
28 Days is a 2000 American drama film directed by Betty Thomas. Sandra Bullock plays Gwen Cummings, a newspaper columnist obliged to enter rehabilitation for alcoholism. The film costars Viggo Mortensen, Dominic West, Elizabeth Perkins, Steve Buscemi and Diane Ladd.-Plot:Gwen Cummings borrows the...

Lily
Battery Park
Battery Park (TV series)
Battery Park is an American comedy television series starring Elizabeth Perkins and Justin Louis. The series premiered March 23, 2000 on NBC...

Madeline Dunleavy TV Series
2001 What Girls Learn Mama TV Movie
Cats & Dogs
Cats & Dogs
Cats & Dogs is a 2001 American-Australian action-comedy film directed by Lawrence Guterman. The screenplay by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra centers on the relationships between cats and dogs. It was shot in Victoria and Vancouver. The film was released on July 4, 2001 by Warner Bros...

Mrs. Brody
2002 Try Seventeen
All I Want (film)
All I Want is a 2002 coming-of-age dramedy film, directed by Jeffrey Porter and written by Charles Kephart. It stars Elijah Wood, Franka Potente, and Mandy Moore...

Blanche
2003 Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...

Coral
2001 Jiminy Glick in Lalawood
Jiminy Glick in Lalawood
Jiminy Glick in Lalawood is a 2004 comedy film. It stars Martin Short as Jiminy Glick, a movie critic who is involved in a murder case at the Toronto International Film Festival.-Storyline:...

Miranda Coolidge
Speak
Speak (film)
Speak is a 2004 American independent film based on the award-winning novel of the same name by Laurie Halse Anderson. It stars a then 13-year-old Kristen Stewart as Melinda Sordino, a high school freshman who practically stops talking after being raped by a senior student. The film is told through...

Joyce Sordino
2005 The Ring Two
The Ring Two
The Ring Two is a 2005 American psychological horror film, and a sequel to the 2002 film The Ring, which was a remake of the 1998 Japanese film Ring...

Dr. Emma Temple
Hercules
Hercules (TV miniseries)
Hercules is a 2005 RHI Entertainment television miniseries, chronicling the life of the legendary Greek hero, Heracles, called Hercules in this series...

Alcmene TV Miniseries
Fierce People
Fierce People (film)
Fierce People is a 2005 drama thriller film adapted by Dirk Wittenborn from his 2002 novel of the same name. Directed by Griffin Dunne, it starred Anton Yelchin, Diane Lane, Kristen Stewart, Chris Evans, and Donald Sutherland.-Plot:...

Mrs. Langley
Must Love Dogs
Must Love Dogs
Must Love Dogs is a 2005 romantic comedy film based on the book written by Claire Cook. It is the third film directed and written by Gary David Goldberg. The film, starring Diane Lane and John Cusack, was produced on a budget of $30 million...

Carol
The Thing About My Folks
The Thing About My Folks
The Thing About My Folks is a 2005 American drama film directed by Raymond De Felitta. The screenplay by Paul Reiser focuses on the effect a terminal illness has on the marriage of an aging couple and their adult children.-Plot:...

Rachel Kleinman
Kids in America Sondra Carmichael
2005–2009 Weeds
Weeds (TV series)
Weeds is an American television comedy created by Jenji Kohan and produced by Tilted Productions in association with Lionsgate Television. The central character is Nancy Botwin , a widowed mother of two boys who begins selling marijuana to support her family after her husband dies suddenly of a...

Celia Hodes TV Series
2009 Monk
Monk (TV series)
Monk is an American comedy-drama detective mystery television series created by Andy Breckman and starring Tony Shalhoub as the titular character, Adrian Monk. It originally ran from 2002 to 2009 and is primarily a mystery series, although it has dark and comic touches.The series debuted on July...

Christine Rapp TV Series, Episode "Mr. Monk's Favorite Show"
2011 Hop Bonnie O'Hare

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK