Felicity Huffman biography

Synopsis

Felicity Huffman was born December 9, 1962, in Bedford, New York. In 1988, she made her Broadway debut in Speed-the-Plow. After a string of guest appearances and small film parts, she took a job in Sports Night in 1998. After a recurring role on Frasier, she landed a leading role in Desperate Housewives. In 2005 she found success on the big screen in Transamerica.

Profile

Actress. Born December 9, 1962, in Bedford, New York. Extremely talented and versatile, Felicity Huffman has worked on stage, film, and television. She is perhaps best known for her depiction of a frazzled mother Lynette Scavo on the popular prime time comedy Desperate Housewives. Nicknamed ??Flicka?? growing up, she first appeared on television in the after school special A Home Run for Love (1978) as a teenager.

Graduating high school in 1981, Felicity Huffman studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She then went to New York University and delved into the city??s theatrical world. Huffman became a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company. In 1988, she made her Broadway debut in David Mamet??s Speed-the-Plow, taking over the role of Karen from Madonna.

After a string of guest appearances and small film parts, Felicity Huffman got a chance to show television audiences just how talented she was in 1998 with the comedy Sports Night created by Aaron Sorkin. She played television producer Dana Whitmaker and earned a Golden Globe Award nomination in 2000 for her work on the series. While critics loved the show, it only lasted two seasons.

After a recurring role on the popular comedy Frasier, Felicity Huffman landed a leading role in a new suburban comedy Desperate Housewives, co-starring with Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher, and Eva Longoria. During the course of the series, her character has wrestled with balancing work and family. Early in the show??s run, Lynette was a stay-at-home mom to her four children, often overwhelmed by the antics of her rambunctious brood and the absence of her husband Tom (Doug Savant). But the couple switched roles when Lynette returned to work. Most recently, the couple has been working together, opening a restaurant. Throughout all of her character??s ups and downs, Huffman made Lynette a realistic, genuine depiction of a modern wife and mother. For her work on the series, she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2005.

That same year, Felicity Huffman found success on the big screen. She starred in Transamerica (2005), an independent film about a pre-operative transsexual named Bree. The story revolves around the discovery of a son named Toby from a sexual encounter during college and the cross-country journey the two take together. Initially the son believed Bree to be a female Christian caseworker, but as the film progressed the two developed a type of bond.

The gentle humanity she infused into this challenging role helped her Huffman her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in 2005.

A resident of Los Angeles, Felicity Huffman has been married to actor and director William H. Macy since 1997. The couple has two daughters, Sofia and Georgia.