Blair Brown Biography

Bonnie Blair Brown (born April 23, 1947) is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high-profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, which ran from 1987 to 1991. Brown is well known for her recent role as Nina Sharp in the television series Fringe, broadcast on Fox.

Personal life

Brown was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Elizabeth Ann (née Blair), a teacher, and Milton Henry Brown, a U.S. intelligence agent. She graduated from The Madeira School in McLean, Virginia before going on to pursue acting at the National Theatre School of Canada, graduating in 1969. She gained notice as a participating actor at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and spent several years honing her work on the stage.

Brown had a relationship with actor Richard Jordan, whom she met while filming the miniseries Captains and the Kings in 1976. The couple lived together from 1976 to 1985; they had one son, Robert Anson Jordan III, born in 1983.

Career

Film

Brown's first feature film role was in the Oscar-winning 1973 film The Paper Chase; her first major starring role was in The Choirboys in 1977. Among her other film credits were Altered States (opposite William Hurt), One Trick Pony, the film Stealing Home (opposite Mark Harmon) and A Flash Of Green (1984). Her arguably highest profile film role to date was the romantic lead opposite John Belushi in Continental Divide (1981) for which she received her first Golden Globe Award nomination, in the category of Best Motion Picture Actress in a Comedy/Musical.

Other film roles include: And I Alone Survived (1978), Strapless (1989), The Astronaut's Wife (1999), Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys (2000), Lars von Trier's Dogville, the Kevin Bacon-directed Loverboy (2005) and The Sentinel (2006).

Television

Brown appeared in several television movies and miniseries, primarily during the 1980s. A high-profile role as Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1983 TV miniseries Kennedy earned her a second Golden Globe nomination, for Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, as well as a BAFTA nomination. She also appeared in several other programs about the Kennedys, including the 1996 miniseries A Season in Purgatory, which was a thinly veiled portrait of the family, as well as an appearance as Anna Roosevelt in a telefilm about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Brown is perhaps best known for her five-year run (1987"1991) on the Emmy Award-nominated comedy-drama series The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. Brown played the title role, and she, and the show, earned a small but dedicated following. Brown received five consecutive Emmy Award nominations for each season, in the category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, but never won. The show spent two years on NBC, then moved to the Lifetime cable channel for the remainder of its run.

Brown also appeared in other prime-time series including The Rockford Files, Kojak, Frasier, Smallville, Touched by an Angel, ER, and Ed. Beginning in 2008, Brown starred as Nina Sharp in the Fox television series Fringe.

Stage

Brown has been involved with theater since the beginning of her career. She appeared in the 1975 New York Shakespeare Festival production of The Comedy of Errors. Among her earlier roles was a run as Lucy Brown in the 1976 production of Brecht & Weill's The Threepenny Opera, produced by Joe Papp and directed by Richard Foreman. She left the production for film work, but after being away from the production for eight months, Ellen Greene, who was playing the part of Jenny, fell ill. Brown astounded the stage manager of the production by coming in and, with one hour of rehearsal, put on a "brilliant" performance as Jenny. Her first major appearance on the Broadway came in 1989, in the play Secret Rapture, written by David Hare.

Once "Molly Dodd" concluded, Brown became a prolific Broadway actress, appearing in a number of roles. Among them were roles in Tom Stoppard's 1995 Lincoln Center Theater production of Arcadia and two separate runs as Frau Schneider in the revival of Cabaret (1998 and 2003). She played Margrethe, the wife of physicist Niels Bohr, in the play Copenhagen, a role for which she won a 2000 Tony Award in the category of Best Featured Actress in a Play. Brown played the lead role in Sarah Ruhl's 2006 play The Clean House at Lincoln Center.

Voice

In the 1990s, Brown expanded her career from performance into voiceover work. Brown has narrated a number of books, as well as being a narrator in films and documentaries. She has narrated a number of audiobooks, including John Grisham's The Client, Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, Stephen King's Rose Madder, Kevin Henkes' Olive's Ocean, Sue Miller's 2005 novel Lost in the Forest, and Isabel Allende's Inés of My Soul.

Brown has narrated numerous documentaries, especially for PBS's American Experience series. She narrated the 2007 PBS series The Mysterious Human Heart. Other documentary narrations include the scientific series The Secret Life of the Brain, a documentary on Aimee Semple McPherson, which aired in April 2007, and a 2006 PBS documentary about Marie Antoinette. In April, 2010, she co-narrated the PBS special, The Buddha, with Richard Gere.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1972	House of Lovers	George Thacker
1973	Dracula		Television film
	The Paper Chase	Miss Farranti
1977	Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years	Anna Roosevelt	Television film
	Charlie Cobb: Nice Night for a Hanging	Charity	Television film
	The 3,000 Mile Chase	Rachel Kane	Television film
	The Quinns	Millicent Priestley	Television film
	The Choirboys	Kimberly Lyles
1978	And I Alone Survived	Lauren Elder	Television film
1979	The Child Stealer	Jan Rodman	Television film
1980	One Trick Pony	Marion
	Altered States	Emily Jessup
1981	Continental Divide	Nell Porter	Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1983	The Skin of Our Teeth	Sabina	Television film
1984	A Flash of Green	Kat Hubble
1985	The Bad Seed	Christine Penmark	Television film
1987	Hands of a Stranger	Diane Benton	Television film
1988	Stealing Home	Ginny Wyatt
1989	Strapless	Dr. Lillian Hempel
1990	Extreme Close-Up	Margaret Toll	Television film
1991	The Good Policeman
	Lethal Innocence	Sally Hatch	Television film
1992	Those Secrets	Neille Banesh	Television film
	Passed Away	Amy Scanlan
	Majority Rule	Gen. Katherine Taylor	Television film
1993	Rio Shannon	Elizabeth Cleary	Television film
	The Day My Parents Ran Away	Mrs. Judy Miller	Television film
1994	Moment of Truth: To Walk Again	Carol Keating	Television film
	The Gift of Love	Helen Porter	Television film
1996	The Ultimate Lie	Joan 'Joanie' McGrath	Television film
	A Season in Purgatory	Grace Bradley	Television film
1997	Convictions	Zalinda Dorcheus	Television film
1999	The Astronaut's Wife	Shelly McLaren
2000	Space Cowboys	Dr. Anne Caruthers
2000	In His Life: The John Lennon Story	Mimi Smith	Television film
	Hamlet	Gertrude	Television film
2001	Follow the Stars Home	Hannah Parker	Television film
2002	Grasp	Jean Malcheck
2003	Dogville	Mrs. Henson
2004	Dark Shadows	Elizabeth Collins Stoddard	Television film
	Copshop	Frances Harding	Television film
2005	Loverboy	Jeanette Rawley
2006	The Sentinel	National Security Advisor
	The Treatment	Miss Callucci
	Griffin & Phoenix	Eve
2007	Dark Matter	Hildy
	First Born	Laura's Mother
2011	The Speed of Thought	Bridger	Post-Production

TV series

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1971	Police Surgeon	Dulcy
1972	The Whiteoaks of Jalna	Pheasan Vaughan
1975	Performance
	Marcus Welby, M.D.
	The Rockford Files	Dep. DA Kate Doyle / Kate Flanders
1976	The Oregon Trail	Jessica Thorpe
	Captains and the Kings	Elizabeth Healey	Miniseries
	Kojak	Stella
1977	Family	Miss Jessup
1978	Wheels	Barbara Lipton	Miniseries
1983	Kennedy	Jacqueline Kennedy	Miniseries Nominated – British Academy Television Award for Best Actress Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress " Miniseries or Television Film
1985	Space	Penny Hardesty Pope	Miniseries
	ABC Afterschool Special	Joan Stewart
1986	Comedy Factory	Valerie Arnold
1987-1991	The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd	Molly Dodd / Lorna LaSalle	Nominated – Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
1995	Frasier	Jill
1997	Feds	Erica Stanton
2001	Touched by an Angel	Victoria
2002	Smallville	Rachel Dunleavy
	Benjamin Franklin	Jane Franklin Mecom	Miniseries documentary
	Young Dr. Freud	Narrator	Documentary
	CSI: Miami	Margie Winters
2003	Law & Order	Virginia Masters
2003-2004	Ed	Mary Burton
2004	ER	Dr. Vicki Ford
	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Attorney Lynne Riff
2005	Missing	Emma Roderick
1995-2007	American Experience	Narrator / Evelyn Nesbit	Documentary
2011	Falling Skies	Sonya	Guest appearance
2008-2013	Fringe	Nina Sharp	Main cast