Mary McDonnell

Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She achieved widespread acclaim for her film roles as Stands With A Fist in Dances With Wolves and May-Alice Culhane in Passion Fish, both of which earned her Academy Award nominations. On television, she is widely recognized for portraying President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, as well as high-ranking police officer Sharon Raydor in the drama series The Closer and its spin-off Major Crimes.

Born on April 28, 1952, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, McDonnell was raised in a Roman Catholic household of Irish heritage alongside five siblings. Her parents were Eileen and John "Jack" McDonnell, who worked as a computer consultant. During her youth, her family relocated to Ithaca, New York, where she spent the remainder of her childhood. She pursued her higher education at the State University of New York at Fredonia. When she was 21 years old, her father passed away.

McDonnell worked for more than two decades in theater and television before achieving her major cinematic breakthrough. On stage, she played the character Shelly in two separate late-1970s off-Broadway productions of Buried Child and earned an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1981 for her work in Still Life. Her Broadway appearances include roles in Execution of Justice, The Heidi Chronicles, and Summer and Smoke. She made her feature film breakthrough in 1990 playing Stands With A Fist in Dances With Wolves, a performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Her film career continued to gain momentum with her lead performance in the 1992 drama Passion Fish, which brought her a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role. McDonnell's other film credits include Grand Canyon, Sneakers, the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day, Donnie Darko, and Scream 4. She also co-starred in the 1988 film Tiger Warsaw and portrayed a judge in the 1997 production of 12 Angry Men.

On television, McDonnell landed her first regular series role in 1980 on the soap opera As the World Turns and starred in the 1984 medical comedy E/R. She later guest-starred on the medical drama ER, earning an Emmy nomination for playing Eleanor Carter, and appeared as Dr. Virginia Dixon on Grey's Anatomy. In 2003, she was cast as Laura Roslin in the miniseries Battlestar Galactica, continuing the role in the weekly television series through 2009. Her performance gained international attention, leading to an invitation to speak at the United Nations and an appearance at the 2009 World Science Festival.

McDonnell subsequently secured a recurring role as Captain Sharon Raydor on The Closer, earning an Emmy Award nomination in 2011 before taking over as the lead character in the spin-off Major Crimes from 2012 to 2018. In 2023, she played Madeleine Usher in Netflix's miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher, and she was later cast in a recurring role on Baywatch. In her personal life, McDonnell married actor Randle Mell in 1984; the couple had two children, Michael and Olivia, before separating in December 2021.