Julie Kavner biography

Synopsis

Profile

Actress. Born on September 7, 1950, in Los Angeles, California. For more than a decade, Julie Kavner has voiced one of television's most popular animated characters—Marge Simpson on The Simpsons. A graduate of Beverly Hills High School, she studied drama at San Diego State University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1973.

Only a year after finishing her degree, Julie Kavner had a supporting role on the sitcom Rhoda, starring Valerie Harper as the title character. She played Rhoda's younger, more awkward and less confident sister, Brenda, and imbued the character with an appealing vulnerability as well as great humor. Audiences and critics alike were impressed with her performance; she was nominated for an Emmy Award four times for her work on the series, winning one in 1978.

After Rhoda, Julie Kavner again showed her comedic talents on The Tracey Ullman Show. The sketch comedy and variety program allowed Kavner to play a broad range of characters, and it also earned her three more Emmy Award nominations. It was on this show that she first began her work as the legendary blue-haired mom on The Simpsons, which first appeared as short segments on the show.

In 1990, The Simpsons became its own half-hour program and soon became a hit with audiences. Julie Kavner??s warm, loving, and sometimes frustrated Marge has spent more than 17 years looking after her family, comprised of her oafish, but sweet husband Homer, troublemaker son Bart, bright and musical daughter Lisa, and baby Maggie. She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992 as Marge. In addition to Marge, she voices Patty and Selma Bouvier, Marge's older and quite bitter sisters.

Along with her work on The Simpsons, Julie Kavner has appeared in several films. During the 1980s and 1990s, she had supporting roles in a number of films by Woody Allen, including Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Radio Days (1987), and Deconstructing Harry (1997). She also had the lead part in Nora Ephron's This Is My Life (1992), starring as a divorced mother of two struggles to become a successful stand-up comedienne. That same year she starred in Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog. Most recently Julie Kavner had a part in the 2006 Adam Sandler comedy Click.

On the air for close to two decades, The Simpsons will hit the big screen in 2007 with its first feature film. Julie Kavner has contributed enormously to the success of the series, playing Marge, often the heart and moral compass of this great animated comedy.