Frances Conroy

Conroy was born March 15, 1953, in Monroe, Georgia, the daughter of Ossie Hardman (née Ray) and Vincent Paul Conroy. Her father, who was of Irish descent, was a business executive, and her mother also worked in business. During the 1971–72 school year, she was a student at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she was a member of the Mermaid Players and appeared in college theatrical productions. She moved to New York City to study drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Juilliard School. She was a member of Juilliard's Drama Division Group 6 (1973–1977) which also included Kevin Conroy (no relation), Kelsey Grammer, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Robin Williams.During the 1970s, she performed regularly with regional and touring theatrical companies (most notably The Acting Company), and appeared as Desdemona at the Delacorte Theatre in a production of Othello with Richard Dreyfuss and Raul Julia. She returned to the Delacorte in the summer of 1998 as, Mrs. Antrobus in Thorton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. One of her first film appearances was as a Shakespearean actress in Woody Allen's 1979 classic, Manhattan. In 1980, she made a very well received Broadway debut in Edward Albee's The Lady from Dubuque. She focused primarily on her stage career for the next two decades, appearing in such productions as Our Town, The Little Foxes, and The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, receiving one Tony and four Drama Desk Award nominations (including a Drama Desk win for The Secret Rapture). Conroy had a small role in the 1984 movie Falling in Love, as a waitress in a swanky restaurant. In 1988, she appeared as the elder daughter of Burt Lancaster's dying patriarch in Rocket Gibraltar. That same year, she appeared in supporting roles in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Another Woman. In 1992, she played the political science teacher Christine Downes in the film Scent of a Woman.