Cynthia Nixon
Encyclopedia
Cynthia Ellen Nixon is an American actress, known for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes is a fictional character on the American HBO television comedy series Sex and the City and subsequent movies. She is portrayed by actress Cynthia Nixon.-Character analysis:...

 in the HBO
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...

 series Sex and the City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

(1998–2004). She has received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two 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...

s, a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

, and a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

.

Personal life

Nixon was born in New York City, the daughter of Anne Knoll, an actress from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, and Walter E. Nixon, a Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

-born radio journalist. She graduated from Hunter College High School
Hunter College High School
Hunter College High School is a New York City secondary school for intellectually gifted students located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It is administered by Hunter College, a senior college of the City University of New York. Although it is not operated by the New York City Department of...

, and attended Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...

.

From 1988 to 2003, Nixon was in a relationship with English professor Danny Mozes. They have two children together, daughter Samantha Mozes (born November 1996) and son Charles Ezekiel Mozes (born December 16, 2002). Since 2004, Nixon has been in a relationship with education activist Christine Marinoni. She remarked in 2007: "In terms of sexual orientation 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." On May 17, 2009, at a rally in support of same-sex marriage, Nixon announced that she and Marinoni had become engaged the month before. Marinoni gave birth to their son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni, on February 7, 2011.

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
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

. Since then, Nixon has become a breast cancer activist. She convinced the head of NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 to air her breast cancer special in a prime time program, and became an Ambassador for Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Susan G. Komen for the Cure, formerly known as The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, often referred to as simply Komen, is the most widely known, largest and best-funded breast cancer organization in the US....

.

Early career

In 1984, while a freshman at Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...

, Nixon made theatrical history by simultaneously appearing in two hit Broadway plays directed by Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...

. These were The Real Thing
The Real Thing (play)
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....

, where Nixon played the daughter of Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...

 and Christine Baranski
Christine Baranski
Christine Jane Baranski is an American stage and screen actress, and is perhaps best known for her Emmy Award winning portrayal as "Maryanne Thorpe" in the sitcom Cybill, and her Emmy nominated portrayal of "Diane Lockhart" in The Good Wife...

; and Hurlyburly
Hurlyburly
Hurlyburly is a dark comedy play by David Rabe, first staged in 1984.-Plot:More than three hours long, Hurlyburly focuses on the intersecting lives of several low- to mid-level Hollywood players in the 1980s. Fueled by massive amounts of drugs, they attempt to find some meaning in their isolated,...

, 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. In 1984 she played the role of Salieri's maid/spy, Lorl, in Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...

, 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
To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth is an American television panel game show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has aired in various forms since 1956 both on networks and in syndication...

, 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
ABC Afterschool Special
The ABC Afterschool Special is an American television anthology series that aired on ABC from 1972 to 1996, usually in the late afternoon on week days. Most of the episodes were dramatic presentations of situations, often controversial, of interest to children and teenagers. Several episodes were...

. She made her feature debut co-starring with Kristy McNichol
Kristy McNichol
Christina Ann "Kristy" McNichol is an American actress.McNichol is best known for her roles as Leticia “Buddy” Lawrence on the television drama series Family and as Barbara Weston on the sitcom Empty Nest. She is also the sister of former child actor Jimmy McNichol...

 and Tatum O'Neal
Tatum O'Neal
Tatum Beatrice O'Neal is an American actress best known for her film work as a child actress in the 1970s. She is the youngest to win a competitive Academy Award, at the age of 10, which she won for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon opposite her father Ryan O'Neal...

 in Little Darlings
Little Darlings
Little Darlings is a 1980 teen film starring Tatum O'Neal, Kristy McNichol, Matt Dillon and Armand Assante, directed by Ronald F. Maxwell.The screenplay is written by Kimi Peck and Dalene Young. The original music score is composed by Charles Fox...

(1980). She made her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 debut as Dinah Lord in a 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story
The Philadelphia Story (play)
The Philadelphia Story is a 1939 American comic play by Philip Barry. It tells the story of a socialite whose wedding plans are complicated by the simultaneous arrival of her ex-husband and an attractive journalist.-Production:...

. Alternating between film, TV and stage she did projects like the 1982 ABC-movie My Body, My Child, the features Prince of the City
Prince of the City
Prince of the City is an American crime drama film about an NYPD officer who chooses to expose police corruption for idealistic reasons. The character of Daniel Ciello was based on real-life NYPD Narcotics Detective Robert Leuci and the script was based on Robert Daley's 1978 book of the same name...

(1981) and I Am the Cheese
I Am the Cheese
I Am the Cheese is a novel written by American author Robert Cormier and first published in 1977. It is categorized as young adult literature.- Plot summary :...

(1983) and the 1982 Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 productions of John Guare
John Guare
John Guare is an American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body...

's Lydie Breeze. In 1985 she appeared alongside Jeff Daniels
Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan...

 in Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...

's Lemon Sky at Second Stage Theatre
Second Stage Theatre
Second Stage Theatre is an award-winning contemporary Off-Broadway theater company.-Mission:The theatre's mission is to give new life to contemporary American plays and to produce the world premiers of new plays by both established and emerging playwrights...

.

She landed her first major supporting part in a movie as an intelligent teenager who aids her boyfriend (Christopher Collet
Christopher Collet
Christopher Collet is an American actor who is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Jake Livingston in the 1984 movie Firstborn, and for his lead role in the 1986 film The Manhattan Project....

) in building a nuclear bomb in Marshall Brickman
Marshall Brickman
Marshall Brickman is a screenwriter, best known for his collaborations with Woody Allen. He is also known for playing the banjo with Eric Weissberg in the 1960s, and for a series of comical parodies published in The New Yorker.-Biography:After attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he...

's The Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project (film)
The Manhattan Project is an American film, released in 1986. Named after the World War II-era program, the plot revolves around a gifted high school student who decides to construct a nuclear bomb for a national science fair. The film's underlying theme involves the Cold War of the 1980s when...

(1986). Nixon was part of the cast of the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan
The Murder of Mary Phagan
The Murder of Mary Phagan, a 1987 two-part TV miniseries made by Orion Pictures Corporation and distributed by National Broadcasting Company , is a dramatization of the story of Leo Frank, a factory manager charged and convicted with murdering a 13-year-old girl, a factory worker named Mary Phagan,...

(NBC, 1988) starring Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...

 and Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...

 and portrayed the daughter of a presidential candidate (Michael Murphy
Michael Murphy (actor)
Michael George Murphy is an American film and television actor.-Career:Murphy played Woody Allen's duplicitous friend Yale in the film Manhattan...

) in Tanner '88
Tanner '88
Tanner '88 is a political mockumentary miniseries written by Garry Trudeau and directed by Robert Altman. First broadcast by HBO during the months leading up to the 1988 U.S. presidential election, it purports to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the campaign of a former Michigan U.S...

(also 1988), Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...

's political satire
Political satire
Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly...

 for HBO. She reprised the role for the 2004 sequel Tanner on Tanner
Tanner on Tanner
Tanner on Tanner is a 2004 comedy and the sequel series to the 1988 Robert Altman directed and Garry Trudeau written miniseries about a failed presidential candidate, Tanner '88...

.

1990s

On stage, Nixon portrayed Juliet
Juliet Capulet
Juliet is one of the title characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, the other being Romeo. She is the daughter of old Capulet, head of the house of Capulet. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself....

 in a 1988 New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...

 production of Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

and acted in the workshop production of Wendy Wasserstein
Wendy Wasserstein
Wendy Wasserstein was an American playwright and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University...

's Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning The Heidi Chronicles
The Heidi Chronicles
The Heidi Chronicles is a 1988 play by Wendy Wasserstein. The play won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.-Production history:A workshop production at Seattle Repertory Theatre was held in April 1988, directed by Daniel J. Sullivan....

, playing several characters after it came to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 in 1989. She was the guest star in the second episode
Subterranean Homeboy Blues (Law & Order episode)
Subterranean Homeboy Blues was the second episode on the long-running crime drama television series Law & Order. It was aired on September 20, 1990.-Plot:...

 of the long running NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 television series Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...

. She replaced Marcia Gay Harden
Marcia Gay Harden
Marcia Gay Harden is an American film and theatre actress. Harden's breakthrough role was in Miller's Crossing and then The First Wives Club which was followed by several roles which gained her wider fame including the hit comedy Flubber and Meet Joe Black...

 as Harper Pitt in Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...

's Angels in America
Angels in America
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.-Characters:...

(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
The Last Night of Ballyhoo
-Plot:The comedy is set in the upper class German-Jewish community living in Atlanta, Georgia in December 1939. Hitler has recently conquered Poland, Gone with the Wind is about to premiere, and Adolph Freitag and his sister Boo and nieces Lala and Sunny - a Jewish family so highly assimilated...

(1997).

Nixon was a founding member of the theatrical troupe The Drama Dept., which included Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker is an American film, television, and theater actress and producer.She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City , for which she won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards...

, Dylan Baker
Dylan Baker
Dylan Baker is an American actor, known for playing supporting roles in both major studio and independent films.-Early life:...

, John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell is an American writer, actor, and director. He is best known for his motion pictures Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus and Rabbit Hole.- Early life:...

 and Billy Crudup
Billy Crudup
William Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...

 among its actors, appearing in the group's productions of Kingdom on Earth (1996), June Moon
June Moon
June Moon is a play by George S. Kaufman and Ring Lardner. Based on the Lardner short story "Some Like Them Cold," about a love affair that loses steam before it ever gets started, it includes songs with words and music by Lardner but is not considered a musical per se.At its center is Fred...

and As Bees in Honey Drown
As Bees In Honey Drown
As Bees In Honey Drown is a satirical comedy by Douglas Carter Beane, an American playwright and screenwriter. The first showing of the play was in New York City in June, 1997. Four weeks later it moved to Lucille Lortel Theatre in the West Village, where it played for a year. It was also a...

(both 1997), Hope is the Thing with Feathers (1998), and The Country Club
The Country Club (play)
The Country Club was originally an Off-Broadway stage play written by Douglas Carter Beane.The story is set in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, in the womblike cub room of the club of the title, as the comedy follows a year in the lives of six insular friends through a series of holiday-themed parties...

(1999).

Nixon has contributed supporting performances to Addams Family Values
Addams Family Values
Addams Family Values is a 1993 sequel to the 1991 comedy The Addams Family. The film was written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and many cast members from the original returned for the sequel, including Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci...

(1993), Baby's Day Out
Baby's Day Out
Baby's Day Out is a 1994 comedy film, written by John Hughes and produced by Richard Vane and John Hughes, and directed by Patrick Read Johnson. The film stars Joe Mantegna, Joe Pantoliano and Brian Haley, as well as twins Adam and Jacob Worton as Baby Bink...

(1994), Marvin's Room (1996) and The Out-of-Towners
The Out-of-Towners (1999 film)
The Out-of-Towners is a 1999 film starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. The movie is a remake of a 1970 film by the same name; the original version, written by Neil Simon, starred Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis.-As remake of 1970 film:...

(1999).

Stardom

She raised her profile significantly as one of the four regulars of HBO's successful comedy Sex and the City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

(1998–2004), as the lawyer Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes is a fictional character on the American HBO television comedy series Sex and the City and subsequent movies. She is portrayed by actress Cynthia Nixon.-Character analysis:...

. After Emmy nominations as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series
This is a list of winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.-Superlatives:-1950s:*1953: Vivian Vance - I Love Lucy as Ethel Mertz** Audrey Meadows - The Jackie Gleason Show as Alice Kramden...

 in 2002 and 2003, Nixon took home the trophy in 2004 for the series' 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
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 man (her best friend) in Advice From a Caterpillar (2000), as well as starring opposite Scott Bakula
Scott Bakula
Scott Stewart Bakula is an American actor, known for his role as Sam Beckett in the television series Quantum Leap, for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama in 1991 and was nominated for four Emmy Awards. He also had a prominent role as Captain Jonathan...

 in the holiday telepic Papa's Angels (2000). In 2002 she also landed a role in the indie
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

 comedy Igby Goes Down
Igby Goes Down
Igby Goes Down is a 2002 comedy-drama film that follows the life of Igby Slocumb, a rebellious and sardonic New York City teenager who attempts to break free of his familial ties and wealthy, overbearing mother...

, and her turn in the theatrical production of Clare Booth Luce's play The Women was captured for PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

' Stage On Screen series.

Post-Sex in the City, Nixon did a guest stint on ER
ER (TV series)
ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...

in 2005 as a mother who undergoes a tricky procedure to lessen the effects of a debilitating stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

. She followed up with a turn as Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...

 for HBO's Warm Springs
Warm Springs (film)
Warm Springs is a 2005 television film about American President Franklin D. Roosevelt's struggle with polio, his discovery of the Warm Springs, Georgia spa resort and his work to turn it into a center for the aid of polio victims, and his resumption of his political career...

(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
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

in the episode "Deception
Deception (House)
"Deception" is the ninth episode of the second season of House, which premiered on the Fox network on December 13, 2005. After House is replaced temporarily by Foreman as department head, problems arise as House tries to make life miserable for him....

", as a patient who suffers a seizure.

In 2006, Nixon won the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Play) for David Lindsay-Abaire
David Lindsay-Abaire
David Lindsay-Abaire is an American playwright and lyricist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play Rabbit Hole, which also earned several Tony Award nominations.-Early life and education:...

's Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning drama Rabbit Hole
Rabbit Hole
Rabbit Hole is a play written by David Lindsay-Abaire. It was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play was originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory and first presented at its Pacific Playwrights Festival reading series in 2005...

. This part was later played by Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...

 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
Michael Patrick King
Michael Patrick King is an American director, writer and producer for television shows.-Life and career:King was born to an Irish American family in Scranton, Pennsylvania and was raised as a Roman Catholic...

 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
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...

, portraying a woman with dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....

.

In 2009, Nixon won the Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 for Best Spoken Word Album along with Beau Bridges
Beau Bridges
Lloyd Vernet "Beau" Bridges III is an American actor and director.- Early life :Bridges was born in Los Angeles, the son of actor Lloyd Bridges and his college sweetheart, Dorothy Bridges . He was nicknamed "Beau" by his mother and father after Ashley Wilkes's son in Gone with the Wind, the book...

 and Blair Underwood
Blair Underwood
Blair Underwood is an American television and film actor. He is perhaps best known as headstrong attorney Jonathan Rollins from the NBC legal drama L.A. Law, a role he portrayed for seven years. He has gained critical acclaim throughout his career, receiving numerous Golden Globe Award...

 for the album An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...

 (Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

)
, making her the 14th person to win an Emmy, a Tony, and a Grammy.

2010s

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

Nixon is set to appear in an upcoming Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 2001, as the second spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama...

episode based on the problems surrounding the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is a rock musical with music and lyrics by U2's Bono and The Edge and a book by Julie Taymor, Glen Berger, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. The musical is based on the Spider-Man comics created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, published by Marvel Comics, as well as the 2002...

. Her character will be "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
Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor is an American director of theater, opera and film. Taymor's work has received many accolades from critics, and she has earned two Tony Awards out of four nominations, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, an Emmy Award and an Academy Award nomination for Original Song...

.

In 2012, Nixon will star 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 will open January 26, 2012 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1980 Little Darlings
Little Darlings
Little Darlings is a 1980 teen film starring Tatum O'Neal, Kristy McNichol, Matt Dillon and Armand Assante, directed by Ronald F. Maxwell.The screenplay is written by Kimi Peck and Dalene Young. The original music score is composed by Charles Fox...

Sunshine
1981 Prince of the City
Prince of the City
Prince of the City is an American crime drama film about an NYPD officer who chooses to expose police corruption for idealistic reasons. The character of Daniel Ciello was based on real-life NYPD Narcotics Detective Robert Leuci and the script was based on Robert Daley's 1978 book of the same name...

Jeannie
1982 My Body, My Child
My Body, My Child
My Body, My Child is a 1982 television film directed by Marvin J. Chomsky and starring Vanessa Redgrave. It premiered on ABC on 12 April, 1982. It includes early performances by future Sex and the City co-stars, Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon...

Nancy TV movie
1983 I Am the Cheese
I Am the Cheese
I Am the Cheese is a novel written by American author Robert Cormier and first published in 1977. It is categorized as young adult literature.- Plot summary :...

Amy Hertz
1984 Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...

Lorl
1986 Jenny Anderman Nominated for a Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

1987 O.C. and Stiggs
O.C. and Stiggs
O.C. and Stiggs is a 1987 film directed by Robert Altman, based on two characters that were originally featured in a series of stories published in National Lampoon magazine. The film stars Daniel H. Jenkins and Neill Barry as the title characters...

Michelle
1988 Tanner '88
Tanner '88
Tanner '88 is a political mockumentary miniseries written by Garry Trudeau and directed by Robert Altman. First broadcast by HBO during the months leading up to the 1988 U.S. presidential election, it purports to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the campaign of a former Michigan U.S...

Alexandra (Alex) Television series
1988 Doreen
1989 Let It Ride
Let It Ride (film)
Let It Ride is a 1989 comedy film. It stars Richard Dreyfuss as a normally unsuccessful habitual gambler who experiences a day in which he wins every bet he places...

Evangeline
1990 Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...

Laura di Biasi Television – Episode: "Subterranean Homeboy Blues"
1991 Love, Lies and Murder
Love, Lies and Murder
Love, Lies, and Murder is a 1991 miniseries starring Clancy Brown, Sheryl Lee, Moira Kelly, Tom Bower, John Ashton, and Cynthia Nixon. It is based on the 1985 murder of Linda Bailey Brown. The names were not changed for the film. The miniseries is four hours long and aired on NBC in two parts, the...

Donna Television
1993 Alice Stark
1993 Murder She Wrote Television – Episode: "Threshold of Fear"
1993 Addams Family Values
Addams Family Values
Addams Family Values is a 1993 sequel to the 1991 comedy The Addams Family. The film was written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and many cast members from the original returned for the sequel, including Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci...

Heather
1993 Through an Open Window
Through an Open Window
Through an Open Window is a 1993 American short film directed by Eric Mendelsohn. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival....

Short
1994 Baby's Day Out
Baby's Day Out
Baby's Day Out is a 1994 comedy film, written by John Hughes and produced by Richard Vane and John Hughes, and directed by Patrick Read Johnson. The film stars Joe Mantegna, Joe Pantoliano and Brian Haley, as well as twins Adam and Jacob Worton as Baby Bink...

Gilbertine
1996 Marvin's Room Retirement Home Director
1999 Trudy Television – Episode: "Alien Radio"
2000 Papa's Angels Sharon Jenkins
2001 Advice From a Caterpillar Missy
2002 Igby Goes Down
Igby Goes Down
Igby Goes Down is a 2002 comedy-drama film that follows the life of Igby Slocumb, a rebellious and sardonic New York City teenager who attempts to break free of his familial ties and wealthy, overbearing mother...

Mrs. Piggee
2003 Kiss Kiss, Dahlings/The Last Mile
1998–2004 Sex and the City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes is a fictional character on the American HBO television comedy series Sex and the City and subsequent movies. She is portrayed by actress Cynthia Nixon.-Character analysis:...

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
Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Television Series
The Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series Drama and Musical/Comedy was an award given in 2002 and 2003.-Drama:-Musical or Comedy:...

 (2002)
2005 Rabbit Hole
Rabbit Hole
Rabbit Hole is a play written by David Lindsay-Abaire. It was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play was originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory and first presented at its Pacific Playwrights Festival reading series in 2005...

Becca Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The award has been presented since 1947, and is for performance in new productions or revivals.-1940s:...

2005 Warm Springs
Warm Springs (film)
Warm Springs is a 2005 television film about American President Franklin D. Roosevelt's struggle with polio, his discovery of the Warm Springs, Georgia spa resort and his work to turn it into a center for the aid of polio victims, and his resumption of his political career...

Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...

Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
2005 ER
ER (TV series)
ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...

A stroke victim Television
2005 House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

Anica Jovanovich Television – Episode: "Deception
Deception (House)
"Deception" is the ninth episode of the second season of House, which premiered on the Fox network on December 13, 2005. After House is replaced temporarily by Foreman as department head, problems arise as House tries to make life miserable for him....

"
2005 Little Manhattan
Little Manhattan
Little Manhattan is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed and written by husband and wife Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett. Though Levin is credited as the director and Flackett as the writer, in the film's DVD commentary the two reveal that they collaborated on both tasks.Little Manhattan depicts...

Leslie
2006 One Last Thing...
One Last Thing...
One Last Thing... is a 2006 comedy-drama film produced by HDNet Films and released by Magnolia Pictures. It was screened at the Toronto Film Festival on September 12, 2005 and had a limited release in the United States on May 5, 2006...

Carol
2007 Gail Beltran
2007 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...

Janis Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress – Drama Series (2008)
2008 Sex and the City: The Movie
Sex and the City: The Movie
Sex and the City is a 2008 American blue romantic comedy film adaptation of the HBO comedy series of the same name about four female friends: Carrie Bradshaw , Samantha Jones , Charlotte York Goldenblatt , and Miranda Hobbes , dealing with their lives as...

Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes is a fictional character on the American HBO television comedy series Sex and the City and subsequent movies. She is portrayed by actress Cynthia Nixon.-Character analysis:...

2009 Lymelife Melissa Bragg
2009 Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade (performer)
Susana Ventura , better known by her stage name Penny Arcade, is an American performance artist, actress, and playwright based in New York City.-Career:...

2010 Sex and the City 2
Sex and the City 2
Sex and the City 2 is a 2010 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Patrick King. It is the sequel to the 2008 film Sex and the City, which is based on the HBO TV series of the same name....

Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes is a fictional character on the American HBO television comedy series Sex and the City and subsequent movies. She is portrayed by actress Cynthia Nixon.-Character analysis:...

ShoWest Ensemble Award
Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress
Nominated — People's Choice Awards
People's Choice Awards
The People's Choice Awards is an American awards show recognizing the people and the work of popular culture. The show has been held annually since 1975 and is voted on by the general public. The People's Choice Awards air on CBS and are produced by Procter & Gamble and Survivor magnate Mark Burnett...

 for Favorite Cast
2010–present Rebecca Television
2011 Too Big to Fail
Too Big to Fail
Too Big to Fail is a television drama film in the United States broadcast on HBO on May 23, 2011. It is based on the non-fiction book Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The TV film was directed by Curtis Hanson...

Michele Davis
Michele Davis
Michele A. Davis served in a number of senior communications positions in the U.S. Treasury Department, Fannie Mae, and the White House during the George W. Bush era from 2001 to January 20, 2009. In her last government position, she served as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Director of...

Television
2011 Rampart
Rampart (film)
Rampart is a drama film released in 2011. Directed by Oren Moverman and co-written by Moverman and James Ellroy, the film stars Woody Harrelson and Ice Cube. In the midst of the fallout from the Rampart scandal of the 1990s, dirty LAPD veteran Dave Brown is forced to face up to the consequences of...


2011
"greys anatomy"
filming

Further reading


External links

  • Interview with Nixon on educational advocacy
  • Cynthia NixonDownstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org
    American Theatre Wing
    The American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...

  • Love and Obstacles: The Case for Gay Marriage discussion with David Boies
    David Boies
    David Boies is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner. He has been involved in various high-profile cases in the United States.-Early life and education:...

    , Brian S. Brown
    Brian S. Brown
    Brian S. Brown is an American activist and president of the National Organization for Marriage , a non-profit advocacy organization that works to prevent or overturn the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States.-Activism:...

    , R. Clarke Cooper
    R. Clarke Cooper
    R. Clarke Cooper is an American political figure. Cooper was appointed Executive Director of Log Cabin Republicans in 2010.- Military service :Cooper accepted commission as a Second Lieutenant in August 2001...

    , Gene Robinson
    Gene Robinson
    Vicki Gene Robinson is the ninth bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Robinson was elected bishop in 2003 and entered office in March 2004...

    , and Jeffrey Toobin
    Jeffrey Toobin
    Jeffrey Ross Toobin is an American lawyer, author, and legal analyst for CNN and The New Yorker.-Early life and education:...

     as part of the The New Yorker
    The New Yorker
    The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

    Festival at SVA Theatre 1, October 2010
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