Donna Murphy facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Donna Murphy
Murphy in 2010
Born	(1959-03-07) March 7, 1959 (age 66) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1979–present
Notable work	Fosca in Passion (1994) Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town (2003) Voice of Mother Gothel in Disney's Tangled (2010) Anij in Star Trek: Insurrection
Spouse(s)	Shawn Elliott ​ ​ (m. 1990; died 2016)​
Children	3

Donna Murphy (born March 7, 1959) is a talented American actress. She is famous for her amazing work in musical theater, which combines singing, dancing, and acting.

Donna has been nominated for the prestigious Tony Award five times. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical twice! She won for her roles as Fosca in Passion (1994–1995) and as Anna Leonowens in The King and I (1996–1997). She was also nominated for her roles in Wonderful Town (2003), LoveMusik (2007), and The People in the Picture (2011).

Donna Murphy first appeared on Broadway in 1979 in the musical They're Playing Our Song. She has also starred in many other stage shows. In 1997, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for her role in a children's TV special called Someone Had to be Benny. This was part of the HBO series Lifestories: Families in Crisis.

You might also know her from movies! She played Anij in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) and Rosalie Octavius in Spider-Man 2 (2004). She was also the voice of Mother Gothel in Disney's animated movie Tangled (2010). More recently, she plays Caroline Schermerhorn Astor in the HBO series The Gilded Age.

Early Life and Education

Donna Murphy was born in Corona, Queens, New York, on March 7, 1959. She is the oldest of seven children. Her mother was Jeanne Fink, and her father, Robert Murphy, was an aerospace engineer. Donna has Irish, French, German, and Czech family roots.

Her family later moved to Hauppauge, on Long Island, New York. When she was just three years old, Donna asked for voice lessons. As a child, she loved putting on shows in Hauppauge. She later moved to Topsfield, Massachusetts, and finished high school at Masconomet Regional High School in 1977.

Career Highlights

Donna Murphy started studying drama at New York University. However, she left during her second year. This was because she got a role as an understudy in the 1979 Broadway musical They're Playing Our Song. She explained in an interview that she needed to audition without missing classes. She also studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

Stage Performances

Donna has performed in many off-Broadway shows. These include Francis (1981), The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1985), and Birds of Paradise (1987). She also appeared in Song of Singapore (1991) and the musical Hello Again (1993). In 2012, she played the Witch in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods.

On Broadway, after They're Playing Our Song, she was an understudy in The Human Comedy (1984). She also played different characters in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1985–1987). She was Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors.

In 1994, she starred as Fosca in Stephen Sondheim's Passion. This role earned her a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. A year later, she was in Twelve Dreams. In 1996, she played Anna Leonowens in The King and I with Lou Diamond Phillips. This role brought her a second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

From 2003 to 2005, she played Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town. She was nominated for a Tony Award and won a Drama Desk Award for this role. In 2007, she played Lotte Lenya in LoveMusik, earning more Tony and Drama Desk nominations. She also appeared as Dolly Levi in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! from 2017 to 2018. She was an alternate for Bette Midler in this role.

Film Roles

Donna Murphy has had many roles in movies. She was Anij, Captain Jean-Luc Picard's friend, in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998). She played a ballet teacher in Center Stage (2000). In Spider-Man 2 (2004), she was Rosalie Octavius, the wife of the villain Dr. Otto Octavius.

She also appeared as Betty in The Fountain (2006) and as Scarlett Johansson's mother in The Nanny Diaries (2007). Kids especially know her as the voice of Mother Gothel in the animated musical Tangled (2010). She sang the song "Mother Knows Best" in the film. In 2012, she played a government secretary in The Bourne Legacy.

Television Appearances

On television, Donna Murphy was a District Attorney named Morgan Graves in the NBC soap opera Another World (1989–1991). She won an Emmy in 1997 for her role in "Someone Had to be Benny" (1996). This was an episode of the HBO series Lifestories: Families in Crisis.

She also had roles in shows like Law & Order (2000), Hack (2002–2003), and Quantico (2017). In 2022, she began appearing in the HBO series The Gilded Age as Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. She also does voice-over work for TV commercials.

Personal Life

Donna Murphy was married to actor and singer Shawn Elliott. They were married from 1990 until he passed away in March 2016. Donna is the stepmother to Shawn's two daughters. In 2005, Donna and Shawn adopted a daughter from Guatemala.

Stage Performances List

Filmography

Film

Television

Video Games

Awards and Nominations

See also

In Spanish: Donna Murphy para niños