Southern-bred Mary-Louise Parker, from Fort Jackson, South Carolina, was born on August 2, 1964, the youngest of the family's brood. She showed potential in her teens and majored in acting in her college years, graduating from the North Carolina School of the Arts. She decided to test the waters in New York, and after work on the off-Broadway stage in the late 1980s, made her Broadway debut with "Prelude to a Kiss" in 1990, where she won the Theatre World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award and a Tony nomination. Films and TV quickly followed. She provided both poignant and amusing moments as the token femme friend to a group of gay men in the AIDS drama Longtime Companion, but really caught fire with her feisty, standout performance in Fried Green Tomatoes, holding her own against such female powerhouses as Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates and Mary Stuart Masterson. Dubbed by some as the "long-suffering girl next door", she played such noble miserables and cast-asides in Grand Canyon, Naked in New York, Bullets Over Broadway, Boys on the Side, in which she was the AIDS victim this time, and Let the Devil Wear Black. Preferring quality over quantity, she perfected her craft with offbeat roles in independent features and did not abandon her theater roots. She copped a slew of acting prizes for her stage work in "How I Learned to Drive" (1996) and, most notably, "Proof" in 2000, wherein she won nearly every award there is to attain, including the prestigious Tony. Her marquee name still does not command what it should, but a picture or production with Mary-Louise Parker in it usually guarantees a strong critical reception. Unmarried, she did enter into a longtime companionship with actor Billy Crudup after the twosome appeared opposite each other in the 1996 play "Bus Stop". They went their separate ways in 2003.
Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1990" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 42. Her critically acclaimed role as a jaded London prostitute named Poopay in "Communicating Doors" played in New York City at the Variety Arts Theatre on Third Avenue, 1998. Is part Swedish. Performed in "Proof," which first opened at Manhattan Theatre Club, then moving to Broadway. She won the Tony award for Best Actress in a Play for this in 2001. The Counting Crows song "Butterfly in Reverse" was written for her. Graduated from the prestigious North Carolina School of Arts. Split with actor Billy Crudup in November of 2003, after seven years. She was seven months pregnant with his child at the time. Son, William Atticus, born 7 January 2004. Won Broadway's 2001 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for "Proof." She had previously received a Tony nomination in the same category in 1990 for "Prelude to a Kiss." Nominated for the 2005 Tony Award for "Reckless" (Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play). For the film The Best Thief in the World, originally Eric Stoltz was offered the role of her husband, but Mary-Louise Parker wanted someone older so asked the producers to hire the actor David Warshofsky. The film never received a theatrical release. Turned down the opportunity to replace Shannen Doherty on Charmed. Considered for the role of Susan Mayer in Desperate Housewives. Recently broke up with her Weeds co-star, Jeffrey Dean Morgan [June 26, 2007]. At age 43, she adopted her second child, a baby girl from Africa, named Ash. This is apparently a shortened version of her birth name, Aberash. The girl's full name is Caroline Aberash Parker.