About Mare Winningham
Mary Megan "Mare" Winningham ( MAIR; born May 16, 1959) is an American actress. An eight-time Emmy Award nominee, she won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Amber Waves in 1980 and George Wallace in 1998. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1995 film Georgia. Winningham's other film and TV roles include The Thorn Birds (1983), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), Miracle Mile (1988), Turner & Hooch (1989), The War (1994), Dandelion (2004), Swing Vote (2008), Brothers (2009), Mildred Pierce (2011), Hatfields & McCoys (2012), and appeared in American Horror Story for four seasons: Coven (2013), Freak Show (2014), Hotel (2015–16), and Cult (2017). She was cast as Meredith Grey's stepmother Susan Grey on Grey's Anatomy (2006–2007) and as Cherry Lockhart, Cole Lockhart's mother for seasons 1–2 and 4 of The Affair (2014–2016; 2018). Winningham made her New York stage debut in the 2007 Off-Broadway musical 10 Million Miles, for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination. She made her Broadway debut in the 2013 revival of Picnic. In 2014, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the original Broadway production of Casa Valentina. Two years later, she starred opposite Gary Sinise in George Wallace, for which she garnered her Golden Globe Award nomination and won an Emmy Award. Although Winningham received no record contracts as result of the appearance, she was signed to an acting contract by Hollywood agent Meyer Mishkin, and received her Screen Actor's Guild card for doing three lines in an episode of James at 15. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.