Marcia Gay Harden

Marcia Gay Harden, born 14 August 1959 in La Jolla (California), was the third daughter of five. Beverly Bushfield was her mother. She was a housewife during the time that Thad Harold Harden fought working in the Army. Families moved oftenher first interest in theatre while the family lived in Greece, and she had been to plays in Athens. Harden studied at American universities in Europe before returning to the US after 1983 to continue her education at University of Texas. She obtained an MFA at NYU and began acting professionally. Though she appeared in a movie as early as 1986, in a film that was not widely known, The Imagemaker (1986), her debut role in the mainstream in a television movie work, was as the hot, sultry woman fatale in the Coen Brothers' cleverly offbeat tribute to the film of the same name, Miller's Crossing (1990). Harden received praise for her sultry performance as Verna the seductive, difficult-to-control moll. Harden then worked in supporting roles. Harden was the lead character in Ava Gardner, a TV biopic about Frank Sinatra.