Cynthia Nixon Biography

Cynthia Ellen Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is an American actress, best known for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998"2004), the film Sex and the City and its sequel Sex and the City 2. Some of her other work has included starring in the films: The Manhattan Project, Baby's Day Out, Let It Ride, Warm Springs, Little Manhattan, The Babysitters, Rampart, and a recurring role in the television show The Big C. She has received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, a Grammy Award, and a GLAAD Media Award.

Early life and education

Nixon was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of Anne Knoll, an actress from Chicago, Illinois, and Walter E. Nixon, a radio journalist from Texas. She graduated from Hunter College High School and attended Barnard College. In the spring of 1986, she studied abroad with Semester at Sea.

Career

Early career

In 1984, while a freshman at Barnard College, Nixon made theatrical history by simultaneously appearing in two hit Broadway plays directed by Mike Nichols. These were The Real Thing, where Nixon played the daughter of Jeremy Irons and Christine Baranski; and Hurlyburly, where she played a young woman who encounters sleazy Hollywood executives. The two theaters were just two blocks apart and Nixon's roles were both short, so she could run from one to the other. Onscreen, she played the role of Salieri's maid/spy, Lorl, in Amadeus (1984), standing out well amidst a powerhouse cast at just 17 years of age.

Nixon's first onscreen appearance was as an imposter on To Tell the Truth, where her mother worked. She began acting at age 12 as the object of a wealthy schoolmate's crush in The Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid, a 1979 ABC Afterschool Special. She made her feature debut co-starring with Kristy McNichol and Tatum O'Neal in Little Darlings (1980). She made her Broadway debut as Dinah Lord in a 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story. Alternating between film, TV and stage, she did projects like the 1982 ABC-movie My Body, My Child, the features Prince of the City (1981) and I Am the Cheese (1983), and the 1982 Off-Broadway productions of John Guare's Lydie Breeze. In 1985, she appeared alongside Jeff Daniels in Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky at Second Stage Theatre.

She landed her first major supporting part in a movie as an intelligent teenager who aids her boyfriend (Christopher Collet) in building a nuclear bomb in Marshall Brickman's The Manhattan Project (1986). Nixon was part of the cast of the NBC miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan (NBC, 1988) starring Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey and portrayed the daughter of a presidential candidate (Michael Murphy) in Tanner '88 (also 1988), Robert Altman's political satire for HBO. She reprised the role for the 2004 sequel Tanner on Tanner.

1990s

On stage, Nixon portrayed Juliet in a 1988 New York Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet and acted in the workshop production of Wendy Wasserstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles, playing several characters after it came to Broadway in 1989. She was the guest star in the second episode of the long running NBC television series Law & Order. She replaced Marcia Gay Harden as Harper Pitt in Tony Kushner's Angels in America (1994), received a Tony nomination for her performance in Indiscretions (Les Parents Terribles) (1996, her sixth Broadway show) and, though she originally lost the part to another actress, eventually took over the role of Lala Levy in the Tony-winning The Last Night of Ballyhoo (1997).

Nixon was a founding member of the theatrical troupe The Drama Dept., which included Sarah Jessica Parker, Dylan Baker, John Cameron Mitchell and Billy Crudup among its actors, appearing in the group's productions of Kingdom on Earth (1996), June Moon and As Bees in Honey Drown (both 1997), Hope is the Thing with Feathers (1998), and The Country Club (1999).

Nixon has contributed supporting performances to Addams Family Values (1993), Baby's Day Out (1994), Marvin's Room (1996) and The Out-of-Towners (1999).

Stardom

She raised her profile significantly as one of the four regulars on HBO's successful comedy Sex and the City (1998"2004), as the lawyer Miranda Hobbes. Nixon received three Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (2002, 2003, 2004), winning the award in 2004, for the show's final season.

The immense popularity of the series led Nixon to enjoy her first leading role in a feature, playing a video artist who falls in love, despite her best efforts to avoid commitment, with a bisexual actor who just happens to be dating a gay man (her best friend) in Advice From a Caterpillar (2000), as well as starring opposite Scott Bakula in the holiday telepic Papa's Angels (2000). In 2002, she also landed a role in the indie comedy Igby Goes Down, and her turn in the theatrical production of Clare Booth Luce's play The Women was captured for PBS' Stage On Screen series.

Post-Sex in the City, Nixon made a guest appearance on ER in 2005, as a mother who undergoes a tricky procedure to lessen the effects of a debilitating stroke. She followed up with a turn as Eleanor Roosevelt for HBO's Warm Springs (2005), which chronicled Franklin Delano Roosevelt's quest for a miracle cure for his polio. Nixon earned an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her performance. In December 2005, she appeared in the Fox TV series House in the episode "Deception", as a patient who suffers a seizure.

In 2006, she appeared in David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Rabbit Hole in a Manhattan Theatre Club production, and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Play). (This part was later played by Nicole Kidman in the movie adaptation of the play.) In 2008, she revived her role as Miranda Hobbes in the Sex and the City feature film, directed by HBO executive producer Michael Patrick King and co-starring the cast of the original series. Also in 2008, she won an Emmy for her guest appearance in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portraying a woman pretending to have dissociative identity disorder.

In 2009, Nixon won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album along with Beau Bridges and Blair Underwood for the album An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore).

2010s

It was announced in June 2010 that Nixon would appear in four episodes of Showtime's series The Big C.

Nixon appeared in a Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode based on the problems surrounding the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Her character is "Amanda Reese, the high-strung and larger-than-life director behind a problem-plagued Broadway version of Icarus", loosely modeled after Spider-Man director, Julie Taymor.

In 2012, Nixon stars as Professor Vivian Bearing in the Broadway debut of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize winning play Wit. Produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club, the play opened January 26, 2012 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Nixon has received a Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Play for this performance.

In 2012, Nixon also stars as Petranilla in the TV miniseries of Ken Follett's World Without End broadcast on the ReelzChannel, alongside Ben Chaplin, Peter Firth, Charlotte Riley and Miranda Richardson.

Personal life

From 1988 to 2003, Nixon was in a relationship with teacher and photographer Danny Mozes. They have two children together, a daughter born in 1996 and a son born in 2002. In 2004, Nixon began dating education activist Christine Marinoni. Nixon and Marinoni became engaged in April 2009. Marinoni gave birth to a son in 2011. Nixon and Marinoni were married in New York City on May 27, 2012, with Nixon wearing a custom-made, pale green dress by Carolina Herrera. Regarding her sexual orientation, Nixon remarked in 2007: "I don't really feel I've changed. I'd been with men all my life, and I'd never fallen in love with a woman. But when I did, it didn't seem so strange. I'm just a woman in love with another woman." She identified herself as bisexual in 2012. Nixon has taken a public stand supporting marriage equality in Marinoni's home state of Washington, hosting a fund-raising event in support of Washington Referendum 74.

In October 2006, Nixon was diagnosed with breast cancer during a routine mammogram. She initially decided not to go public with her illness because of the stigma involved, but in April 2008, she announced her battle with the disease in an interview with Good Morning America. Since then, Nixon has become a breast cancer activist. She convinced the head of NBC to air her breast cancer special in a prime time program, and became an Ambassador for Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1980	Little Darlings	Sunshine	Film
1981	Prince of the City	Jeannie	Film
1982	My Body, My Child	Nancy	TV movie
1983	I Am the Cheese	Amy Hertz	Film
1984	Amadeus	Lorl	Film
1986	'	Jenny Anderman	Nominated for a Young Artist Award
1987	O.C. and Stiggs	Michelle	Film
1988	Tanner '88	Alexandra (Alex)	Television series
1988	'	Doreen	Film
1989	Let It Ride	Evangeline	Film
1990	Law & Order	Laura di Biasi	Television " Episode: "Subterranean Homeboy Blues"
1991	Love, Lies and Murder	Donna	Television
1993	'	Alice Stark	Film
1993	Murder She Wrote		Television " Episode: "Threshold of Fear"
1993	Addams Family Values	Heather	Film
1993	Through an Open Window		Short
1994	Baby's Day Out	Gilbertine	Film
1996	Marvin's Room	Retirement Home Director	Film
October 5, 1996	Early Edition, Season 1, Episode 3: "Baby", Guest Starring	Pregnant woman who delivers twins (with help of Chuck) in a stuck elevator	TV series
1999	'	Trudy	Television " Episode: "Alien Radio"
2000	Papa's Angels	Sharon Jenkins	Film
2001	Advice From a Caterpillar	Missy	Film
2002	Igby Goes Down	Mrs. Piggee	Film
2003	Kiss Kiss, Dahlings/The Last Mile		Film
1998"2004	Sex and the City	Miranda Hobbes	[[Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards#THE LUCY AWARD|Women in Film Lucy Award]] (shared with cast) Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (2001) Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (2003) Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress " Comedy Series (2004) Nominated "? Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress " Comedy Series (2002"03) Nominated "? Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress " Series, Miniseries or Television Film (1999"2000, 2002"03) Nominated "? Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (2000, 2002, 2004) Nominated "? Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress " Television Series (2002)
2005	Rabbit Hole	Becca	Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
2005	Warm Springs	Eleanor Roosevelt	Nominated "? Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress " Miniseries or a Movie
2005	ER	Ellie, A stroke victim	Television
2005	House	Anica Jovanovich	Television " Episode: "Deception"
2005	Little Manhattan	Leslie	Film
2006	One Last Thing...	Carol	Film
2007	'	Gail Beltran	Film
2007	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Janis	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress " Drama Series (2008)
2008	Sex and the City: The Movie	Miranda Hobbes	Film
2009	Lymelife	Melissa Bragg	Film
2009	'	Penny Arcade	Film
2010	Sex and the City 2	Miranda Hobbes	ShoWest Ensemble Award Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress Nominated "? People's Choice Awards for Favorite Cast
2010"2013	'	Rebecca	Television
2011	Too Big to Fail	Michele Davis	Television
2011	Rampart	Barbara	Film
2012	World Without End	Petronilla	Television
2012	30 Rock	Herself	Episode: Kidnapped by Danger
2014	Hannibal	Kade Prurnell	TV series