Frances McDormand, American actress
Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith; June 23, 1957) is an American actress and producer. She has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and one Tony Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting".
McDormand was educated at Bethany College and Yale University. Married to Joel Coen of the Coen brothers, she has appeared in a number of their films, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008), and Hail, Caesar! (2016). For her portrayal of a police detective in Fargo, McDormand won her first Academy Award for Best Actress. She received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005).
In 2017, McDormand starred as a hardened woman seeking justice for her daughter's murder in the crime-drama film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which won her a second Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2020, she starred in the independent drama Nomadland, winning a third Academy Award for Best Actress and, as one of the film's producers, the Academy Award for Best Picture.
McDormand made her Broadway debut in a 1984 revival of the drama Awake and Sing!, and received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance as Stella Kowalski in a 1988 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. She returned to Broadway in 2008 with a revival of The Country Girl. In 2011, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing a troubled single mother in Good People. On television, McDormand produced and starred as the titular protagonist in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014), which won her two Primetime Emmy Awards.