Biography of Helen HuntHelen Elizabeth Hunt (born June 15, 1963) is an Emmy-, Golden Globe-, and Academy Award-winning American actress, perhaps most widely known for her role in the television sitcom Mad About You.
Hunt was born in Culver City, California, the daughter of Jane Elizabeth (née Novis), a photographer, and Gordon Hunt, a film director and acting coach. Her maternal grandmother, Dorothy Fries (née Anderson) was a voice coach, and her uncle, Peter H. Hunt, is also a director. Helen Hunt is of Methodist and Jewish background.
Hunt was married to actor Hank Azaria from 1999 until 2000. She has been in a relationship with Matthew Carnahan since 2001 and they have a daughter, Makena'lei Gordon Carnahan, born in 2004.
Hunt began working in the 1970s as a child actress. Her early roles included an appearance as Murray Slaughter's daughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and a regular role in the television series The Swiss Family Robinson. She appeared as a marijuana-smoking classmate on an episode of The Facts of Life. She also appeared as a young woman who, while on PCP, jumps out of a second-story window in a 1982 after school special called Desperate Lives. In the mid-1980s, she had a recurring role on St. Elsewhere as Clancy Williams, girlfriend of Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison.
In the 1990s, after the lead female role in the short-lived My Life and Times, Hunt became well-known to television audiences in Mad About You, winning Emmy Awards for her performance in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999. Hunt has also had a successful film career, with roles in movies such as Cast Away and the 1996 blockbuster Twister. After winning an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1998 for her performance in As Good as It Gets, she took time off from movie work to play Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Lincoln Center in New York City.
In 2000, Hunt returned to the screen in four films: Dr. T & the Women with Richard Gere, Pay It Forward with Kevin Spacey & Haley Joel Osment, What Women Want with Mel Gibson, and Cast Away with Tom Hanks. In 2003, she returned to Broadway in Yasmina Reza's Life x 3. Hunt was also a final candidate for the role of "Clarice Starling" in Hannibal, after Jodie Foster decided not to reprise her oscar winning role from The Silence of the Lambs (film). However, Hunt lost the role to Julianne Moore at the last minute. In 2006, Hunt appeared in a small role in the film Bobby. Her directorial debut came with the film Then She Found Me, a film in which she also starred.
She currently owns a production company with Connie Tavel, Hunt/Tavel Productions under Sony Pictures Entertainment.
WANT MORE CELEBS - CLICK HERE!
|
