Frances McDormand

Frances McDormand (born 23.6.1957)

Frances McDormand is an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Frances McDormand: Childhood

Frances McDormand was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was given up for adoption and was adopted by Noreen and Vernon McDormand. Noreen was a nurse and Vernon was a pastor. Frances' sister, Dorothy, is also a minister and chaplain. She has another two sisters, all of whom were adopted. The McDormands often moved home; as a result, Frances lived in Georgia Kentucky and Tennessee before the McDormands settled in Pittsburgh.

Frances McDormand attained a BA in Theatre in 1979, after studying at Bethany College, West Virginia. She went on to earn an MFA from Yale University School of Drama, where she shared a room with Holly Hunter.

Frances McDormand: Music Career

Frances McDormand's first paid acting job was performing in a play written by Derek Walcott, in Trinidad and Tobago. Her film debut came in 1984, when she appeared in Joel and Ethan Coen's first film, Blood Simple. The film also starred Jon Getz and marked the beginning of a long-standing professional relationship between McDormand and the Coen brothers.

Around this time, she shared a house in the Bronx, with Holly Hunter, the Coen brothers and the director Sam Raimi.

In 1987, she shared screen time with Holly Hunter in Raising Arizona, alongside Nicolas Cage.

McDormand also took on TV roles, playing Connie Chapman in the US police drama, Hill Street Blues. In addition to this, she worked on the stage, starring in a production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award.

As her big-screen career developed, Frances McDormand was nominated four times for an Academy Award. The first nomination came in 1988, when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Mississippi Burning. The film also starred Gene Hackman and Willem Defoe. Then, in 1996, McDormand won the Best Actress Award for her role in the Coen brothers' Fargo, which also starred William H Macy and Steve Buscemi. Her next nomination came for the Best Supporting Actress Award, this time for her performance in Almost Famous, which starred Kate Hudson as a rock band's groupie and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the revered music journalist Lester Bangs. McDormand's fourth Academy Award nomination came in 2006, again for the Best Supporting Actress gong, for her appearance in North Country, a film starring Charlize Theron and Sissy Spacek.

McDormand has won other awards, for films such as 2000's Wonder Boys, which included such luminaries as Michael Douglas, Robert Downey Jr and Tobey Maguire among the cast members.

Other significant film roles for Frances McDormand include her appearance in 2008's Burn After Reading, another Coen brothers film, starring John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton and George Clooney. In 2006, McDormand starred opposite Jennifer Aniston and Joan Cusack in Friends with Money, a critically-lauded drama that opened the 2006 Sundance Festival. 2008 also saw McDormand star alongside Amy Adams in the romantic comedy Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

Frances McDormand: Personal Life

Frances McDormand is married to the director Joel Coen, with whom she has often worked professionally throughout her career. Joel and Frances have an adopted son from Paraguay, named Pedro.