Mary Steenburgen
"Clara Clayton Brown" (3,Animated)
BORN: February 08, 1953, Newport, Arkansas EDUCATION: Graduate of Neighborhood Playhouse. Honorary Doctorates from University of Arkansas in Little Rock & Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. SPOUSE: Ted Danson on October 07, 1995 CHILDREN: Lilli Amanda (1-22-81), Charlie
MARY STEENBURGEN, a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, moved to New York in 1972 to study acting. She joined the Back to the Future cast as Clara Clayton, an 1885 woman whose intelligence and charm transcend the boundaries of the space-time continuum and caused Doc Brown to be instantly smitten with her.
A chance meeting with Jack Nicholson in a casting office led to a screen test and her motion picture debut opposite the actor (and director) in Goin' South. Co-starring in the film was Christopher Lloyd, who spoke one of the first lines ever uttered on screen to Steenburgen. "Chris played a character named Towfield. In the film, when I spurn his advances and save Jack, who is a criminal about to be hung, Towfield says 'I've asked you out a thousand times, and all I got was the flap of your umbrella'." While on the set of Back to the Future Part III in Sonora, California, Steenburgen had a picture taken with Lloyd and sent it to Jack Nicholson, along with a note that read, "It took him 12 years, but Towfield finally got the girl!"
In addition to her previous experience in westerns, Back to the Future Part III was her second time travel movie. The first being Time After Time, which found H.G. Wells, portrayed by her first husband, actor Malcolm McDowell, traveling to modern day San Francisco, where he gets involved with a 1980's woman, portrayed by Steenburgen. "Actually, I've played the same scene in that film and in Back to the Future Part III," she reveals. "I've had a man from a different time period tell me that he's in love with me, but he has to go back to his own time. My response in both cases is, of course, disbelief, and I order them out of my life. Afterwards, I find out I was wrong and that, in fact, the man is indeed from another time, and I go after him (them) to profess my love. It's a pretty strange feeling to find yourself doing the same scene, so many years apart, for the second time in your career."
She was nominated for a Golden Globe® Award in 1978 for Goin' South, and she won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress with her portrayal of Lynda Dummar in Melvin and Howard. She has since starred in such films as Cross Creek, A Midsummer's Night Sex Comedy, Ragtime, Romantic Comedy, One Magic Christmas, Dead of Winter and Miss Firecracker. Prior to her work in Back to the Future Part III, Steenburgen starred opposite Steve Martin in one of 1989's biggest hits, Parenthood. On television, she starred in the Showtime mini-series Tender is the Night, and earned an Emmy® nomination for the CBS-TV production of The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank. She also performed in the play "Marvin's Room".
Mary can currently be seen in the CBS comedy series Ink with her husband and co-star, Ted Danson.
Steenburgen married Danson on October 7, 1995 in Martha's Vineyard, Massechusetts, where the couple lives with her two children, Charlie and Lilli, from her previous marriage to Malcolm McDowell.
Careerography
FEATURE FILMS
???? Oh Carolina 2001 Absolute Zero 2001 Life as a House 2001 Nobody's Baby 2001 The Trumpet of the Swan 2001 Wish You Were Dead ![]()
1996 The Grass Harp ![]()
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1995 Nixon ![]()
1995 Powder ![]()
1995 My Family (Mi Familia) ![]()
1994 Pontiac Moon ![]()
1994 It Runs in the Family ![]()
1994 Wyatt Earp ![]()
1994 Clifford ![]()
1993 Philadelphia ![]()
1993 What's Eating Gilbert Grape ![]()
1993 Earth and the American Dream (voice) 1991 The Butcher's Wife ![]()
1990 The Long Walk Home (voice) ![]()
1990 Back to the Future Part III ![]()
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1989 Parenthood ![]()
1989 Miss Firecracker ![]()
1987 The Whales of August ![]()
1987 End of the Line (also Executive Produced) ![]()
1987 Dead of Winter ![]()
1985 One Magic Christmas ![]()
1983 Cross Creek ![]()
1983 Romantic Comedy ![]()
1982 A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy ![]()
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1981 Ragtime ![]()
1980 Melvin and Howard ![]()
1979 Time After Time ![]()
1978 Goin' South ![]()
GUEST APPEARANCES
2000 Curb Your Enthusiasm: "Ted and Mary" ![]()
1998 Ellen: "Ellen: A Hollywood Tribute (2)" ![]()
1994 Fraiser: "Retirement is Murder" ![]()
1993 Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories: "Katy No-Pocket" (voice) ![]()
1983 Faerie Tale Theatre - "Little Red Riding Hood" ![]()
MADE FOR TV/CABLE MOVIES
2000 Picnic ![]()
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1998 About Sarah ![]()
1994 The Gift 1988 The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank ![]()
MINI-SERIES
1999 Noah's Ark ![]()
1996 Gulliver's Travels ![]()
1985 Tender Is the Night SPECIALS
2000 The Tulsa Lynching of 1921: A Hidden Story ![]()
2000 The Directors: "The Films of Robert Zemeckis" (Interviewee) 1999 Intimate Portrait: Laura Dern ![]()
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1999 Intimate Portrait: Mary Steenburgen ![]()
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1994 A Century of Women (voice) ![]()
1990 The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy ![]()
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STRAIGHT-TO-VIDEO MOVIES
1998 El Dorado (voice) TELEVISION SERIES
1996 Ink (also Executive Producer) ![]()
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1991 Back to the Future - The Animated Series (voice) ![]()
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THEATRE
Fan Club Information
Back to the Future...The Fan Club
P.O. Box 880
Athens, AL 35612-0880
U.S.A.
Phone/FAX: 205-230-6288
Email: time@traveller.com
Website: http://www.bttf.com/fanclub/
