Mary-Louise Parker

Mary-Louise Parker (born August 2, 1964) is an American actress, best known for her 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. Parker has appeared in films and series such as RED, Fried Green Tomatoes, Boys on the Side, The West Wing, and Angels in America, for which she received a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Parker is also the recipient of the 2001 Tony Award for Best Actress for the Broadway play Proof. --- Parker was born in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Her mother, Caroline Louise (née Morell), was of part Swedish descent, and her father, John Morgan Parker, was a judge who served in the U.S. Army. Because of her father's career, Parker spent parts of her childhood in Tennessee and Texas, as well as in Thailand, Germany, and France. Parker majored in drama at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Parker got her start in a bit part on the soap opera Ryan's Hope. In the late 1980s, Parker moved to New York, where she got a job measuring feet at the ECCO shoe company. After a few minor roles, she made her Broadway debut in a 1990 production of Craig Lucas' Prelude to a Kiss, playing the lead role of Rita. She moved with the production when it transferred from its origin Off-Broadway. She won the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance and was nominated for a Tony Award (although she did not play the role when the film was made). --- From 1996 to November 2003, Parker dated actor Billy Crudup, with whom she had a son, William Atticus Crudup, born on January 7, 2004 (Crudup had left her two months earlier). In December 2006, Parker began dating actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, whom she met on the set of Weeds. In March 2007, Parker stated that the relationship was "going great." The two briefly split in June 2007, but later reconciled. On February 12, 2008, Parker and Morgan announced their engagement, only to break up again in April 2008. In September 2007, Parker adopted a baby girl from Ethiopia, Caroline 'Ash' Aberash Parker.