Mare Winningham

Mare Winningham is one of those rare performers who's been quietly exceptional for so long that it almost feels like the industry's best-kept secret — except the awards tell a different story. She came up as a Brat Pack-adjacent presence in 1980s films like St. Elmo's Fire and Threshold, but she never got swallowed by the Hollywood machine the way some of her peers did. Instead she carved out this remarkable niche on television, winning two Emmy Awards and racking up eight nominations total, plus an Oscar nod for Georgia in 1995 where she played opposite her real-life friend Jennifer Jason Leigh. What I genuinely love about her is that she's also a serious singer-songwriter — this isn't a celebrity side project, it's a real musical identity she's nurtured throughout her career. She brings that same quiet intensity to everything she touches, and the dual Tony nominations for The Big Knife and Fog of War prove the stage respects her just as much. An actor's actor, full stop.

Name (English)

Mare Winningham

Name (Japanese)

メア・ウィニンガム

Reading

めあ・うぃにんがむ

Born

May 16, 1959 (age 67)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Taurus / Boar

Origin

Phoenix, Arizona, United States

Occupation

actor / singer-songwriter / composer / television actor / film actor

High school

Chatsworth High School

Awards & achievements

• 1998 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A1%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A3%E3%83%8B%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AC%E3%83%A0

Tags

• Arizona
• actor
• singer-songwriter
• composer

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.