Allison Brooks Janney is an American actress. Known for her performances across the screen and stage, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and seven Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards.
Janney was born on November 19, 1959, in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Dayton, Ohio. She is the daughter of Macy Brooks Janney (née Putnam), a former actress, and Jervis Spencer Janney Jr., a real estate developer and jazz musician. She has an older brother, Jay, and had a younger brother, Hal (1961–2011). Hal, who had battled depression and addiction for many years, died by suicide in 2011 at the age of 49.
She attended the Miami Valley School in Dayton, where she was named a distinguished alumna in 2005, and the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, where she was named Alumna of the Year in 2016. Janney initially aspired to a career in figure skating, but her height of 6 ft (183cm) and a freak accident when she was a teenager put an end to that dream. She attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where she majored in theatre. During her freshman year, Janney met actors Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward at a play for the inaugural event of the college's newly built Bolton Theater, which Newman was directing. The couple encouraged her to continue acting and offered her guidance during the early days in her career. She went on to train at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York and then received a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in mid-1984.
