Amy Irving

Amy Irving (born September 10, 1953) is an American actress and singer, who has worked in film, stage, and television. Her accolades include an Obie Award, and nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award.

Born in Palo Alto, California, to actors Jules Irving and Priscilla Pointer, Irving was involved in theater in San Francisco before her family moved to New York City during her teenage years. In New York, she made her Broadway debut in The Country Wife (1965–1966) at age 13. Irving studied theater at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She made her feature film debut in Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976) and had a lead role in The Fury, a 1978 supernatural thriller.

In 1980, Irving appeared in a Broadway production of Amadeus and the film Honeysuckle Rose (1980). She was cast in Barbra Streisand's musical epic Yentl (1983), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1988, she received an Obie Award for her Off-Broadway performance in a production of The Road to Mecca, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the comedy Crossing Delancey (1988).

Irving went on to appear in the original Broadway production of Broken Glass (1994) and the revival of Three Sisters (1997). In film, she starred in the ensemble comedy Deconstructing Harry (1997), and reprised her role as Sue Snell in The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) before co-starring opposite Michael Douglas in Steven Soderbergh's crime-drama Traffic (2000). She appeared in the independent films Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001) and Adam (2009). From 2006 to 2007, she starred in the Broadway production of The Coast of Utopia. In 2018, she reunited with Soderbergh, appearing in a supporting role in his horror film Unsane.

Early life

Irving was born on September 10, 1953, in Palo Alto.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> Her father was film and stage director Jules Irving (born Jules Israel) and her mother was actress Priscilla Pointer.<ref name=":0" /> Her brother is writer and director David Irving and her sister, Katie Irving, is a singer and teacher of deaf children. Irving's father was of Russian-Jewish descent,<ref name=lat/> and one of Irving's maternal great-great-grandfathers was also Jewish.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Irving was raised in her mother's faith of Christian Science, and her family observed no religious traditions.<ref name=lat>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Her father co-founded the Actor's Workshop and she was active in local theater as a child.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She attended the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco<ref name=":0" /> in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and appeared in several productions there. She also trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. As a teenager, Irving moved with her family to Manhattan, New York, where her father was appointed the director of the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater.<ref name=lat/> She graduated from the Professional Children's School<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and made her Off-Broadway debut at age 17 in And Chocolate on Her Chin.

Career

Irving's first stage appearance was at nine months old in the production "Rumplestiltskin" where her father brought her on the stage to play the part of his child who he trades for spun gold. Then at age two, she portrayed a bit-part character ("Princess Primrose") in a play which her father directed. She had a walk-on role in the 1965–66 Broadway show The Country Wife at age 12. Her character was to sell a hamster to Stacy Keach in a crowd scene. The play was directed by family friend Robert Symonds, the associate director of the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater, and who later became her stepfather after her father died and her mother remarried. Within six months of returning to Los Angeles from London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in the mid-1970s, Irving was cast in a major motion picture and was working on various TV projects such as guest spots in Police Woman, Happy Days, and a lead role in the mini-series epic Once an Eagle opposite veterans Sam Elliott and Glenn Ford, and a young Melanie Griffith. She played Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at the Los Angeles Free Shakespeare Theatre in 1975, and returned to the role at the Seattle Repertory Theatre (1982–1983).

File:Opening night537.jpg

Irving at the opening night for Heartbreak House, December 1983

Irving auditioned for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars, which went to Carrie Fisher. She then starred in the Brian DePalma-directed films Carrie as Sue Snell (her mother was also in Carrie), and The Fury as Gillian Bellaver. In 1999, she reprised her role as Sue Snell in The Rage: Carrie 2. She starred with Richard Dreyfuss in 1980 in The Competition. Also in 1980, she appeared in Honeysuckle Rose, which also marked her on-screen singing debut. Both her and Dyan Cannon's characters were country-and-western singers, and both actresses did their own singing in the film. In 1983, she featured in Barbra Streisand's directorial debut, Yentl, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 1984, she co-starred in Micki + Maude. In 1988, she was in Crossing Delancey (for which she received a Golden Globe nomination). That same year, she also gave another singing performance in the live-action/animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, providing the singing voice for Jessica Rabbit. In 1997, she appeared in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry. Irving also appeared in the TV show Alias as Emily Sloane, portrayed Princess Anjuli in the big-budget miniseries epic The Far Pavilions and headlined the lavish TV production Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna. More recently Irving appeared in the films Traffic (2000), Tuck Everlasting (2002), Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2002) and an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2001.

Irving's stage work includes Amadeus (replacing Jane Seymour due to pregnancy) at the Broadhurst Theatre for nine months, Heartbreak House with Rex Harrison at the Circle in the Square Theatre, Broken Glass at the Booth Theatre and Three Sisters with Jeanne Tripplehorn and Lili Taylor at the Roundabout Theatre. Additional Off-Broadway credits include: The Heidi Chronicles; The Road to Mecca; The Vagina Monologues in both London and New York; The Glass Menagerie with her mother, actress Priscilla Pointer; Celadine, a world premiere at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey; and the 2006 one-woman play, A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop. In 1994, she and Anthony Hopkins hosted the 48th Tony Awards at the Gershwin Theatre, New York.

Irving's last Broadway appearance was in the American premiere of Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia at New York's Lincoln Center during its 2006–07 season. In 2009, she played the title role in Saint Joan, in an audio version by the Hollywood Theater of the Ear. In May 2010, Irving made her Opera Theatre of Saint Louis debut in the role of Desiree Armfeldt in Isaac Mizrahi's directorial debut of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music. In October 2010, Irving guest-starred in "Unwritten," the third episode of the seventh season of the Fox series House M.D..<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2013, Irving appeared in a recurring role in Zero Hour. In 2018, she co-starred in the psychological horror film Unsane, directed by Steven Soderbergh.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In April 2023, Irving released her first album, Born In a Trunk, featuring 10 cover songs pulled from her life and career.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Personal life

Irving dated American film director Steven Spielberg from 1976 to 1980. She then had a brief relationship with Willie Nelson, her co-star in the film Honeysuckle Rose.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The breakup with Spielberg cost her the role of Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which he had offered to her at the time,<ref name=perry>Template:Cite book</ref> but they reunited and were married from 1985 to 1989. She received an estimated $100 million divorce settlement after a judge controversially vacated a prenuptial agreement that had been written on a napkin.<ref name=clarke/>

In 1989, she became romantically and professionally involved with Brazilian film director Bruno Barreto;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> they were married in 1996 and divorced in 2005. She has two sons: Max Samuel (with Spielberg), born June 13, 1985; and Gabriel Davis (with Barreto), born May 4, 1990.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

She married Kenneth Bowser Jr., a documentary filmmaker, in 2007. He has a daughter, Samantha, from a previous marriage with entertainment lawyer Marilyn Haft.<ref name=clarke>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The couple live in a barn converted into a home in rural Westchester County, New York. The building burned down in a fire in 2009, but the couple rebuilt it on the same spot with reclaimed wood, and still live there as of 2025, when the house was profiled in The New York Times "At Home" series. Irving also owns a $9M apartment in New York City which she purchased in 2015.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Filmography

Film

Year(s)	Play	Role	Notes	Template:Tooltip
1976	Carrie	Sue Snell		<ref name=afi>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1978	Template:Sortname	Gillian Bellaver		<ref name=afi/>
1979	Voices	Rosemarie Lemon		<ref name=afi/>
1980	Honeysuckle Rose	Lily Ramsey		<ref name=afi/>
1980	Template:Sortname	Heidi Joan Schoonover		<ref name=afi/>
1983	Yentl	Hadass Vishkower		<ref name=afi/>
1984	Micki & Maude	Maude Salinger		<ref name=afi/>
1987	Rumpelstiltskin	Katie		<ref name=afi/>
1988	Crossing Delancey	Isabelle Grossman		<ref name=afi/>
1988	Who Framed Roger Rabbit	Jessica Rabbit	Singing voice	<ref name=tvg/>
1990	Template:Sortname	Kate Melendez		<ref name=afi/>
1991	Template:Sortname	Miss Kitty	Voice	<ref name=afi/>
1993	Benefit of the Doubt	Karen Braswell		<ref name=afi/>
1995	Kleptomania	Diana Allen
1995	Call of the Wylie	Mel	Short film
1996	Carried Away	Rosealee Henson		<ref name=afi/>
1996	I'm Not Rappaport	Clara Gelber		<ref name=afi/>
1997	Deconstructing Harry	Jane		<ref name=tvg/>
1998	One Tough Cop	FBI Agent Jean Devlin		<ref name=tvg/>
1999	Template:Sortname	Sarah Fertig		<ref name=tvg/>
1999	Template:Sortname	Sue Snell		<ref name=afi/>
1999	Blue Ridge Fall	Ellie Perkins
2000	Bossa Nova	Mary Ann Simpson		<ref name=tvg/>
2000	Traffic	Barbara Wakefield		<ref name=afi/>
2001	Thirteen Conversations About One Thing	Patricia		<ref name=afi/>
2002	Tuck Everlasting	Mother Foster		<ref name=afi/>
2005	Hide and Seek	Alison Callaway		<ref name=afi/>
2009	Adam	Rebecca Buchwald		<ref name=afi/>
2018	Unsane	Angela Valentini		<ref name=tvg/>
2021	A Mouthful of Air	Bobbi Davis		<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Television

Year(s)	Play	Role	Notes	Template:Tooltip
1975	Template:Sortname	Cindy Mullins	Episode: "Reading, Writing and Angel Dust"
1975	Police Woman	June Hummel	Episode: "The Hit"
1975	Happy Days	Olivia	Episode: "Tell It to the Marines"
1976	James Dean	Norma Jean	Television film
1976	Dynasty	Amanda Blackwood	Television film
1976	Panache	Anne	Television film
1976–1977	Once an Eagle	Emily Pawlfrey Massengale	7 episodes	<ref name=tvg>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1977	I'm a Fool	Lucy	Television film
1984	Template:Sortname	Anjuli	3 episodes	<ref name=tvg/>
1985	Great Performances	Ellie Dunn	Episode: "Heartbreak House"
1986	Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna	Anna Anderson	Television film
1989	Nightmare Classics	The Governess	Episode: "The Turn of the Screw"
1994	Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics	Melissa Sanders	Episode: "The Theatre"
1998	Stories from My Childhood	Anastasia	Voice, episode: "Beauty and the Beast"
1999	Spin City	Lindsay Shaw	Episode: "The Great Debate"	<ref name=tvg/>
2001	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Rebecca Ramsey	Episode: "Repression"	<ref name=tvg/>
2001	American Masters	Novels	Voice, episode: "F. Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams"
2002–2005	Alias	Emily Sloane	9 episodes	<ref name=tvg/>
2010	House	Alice Tanner	Episode: "Unwritten"	<ref name=tvg/>
2013	Zero Hour	Melanie Lynch	10 episodes	<ref name=tvg/>
2015	Template:Sortname	Phyllis Barsetto	Episode: "Innocents"	<ref name=tvg/>
2018	Template:Sortname	Nan	Episode #4.5
2019	Soundtrack	Polly	2 episodes

Stage credits

Year(s)	Play	Role	Notes	Template:Tooltip
1965–1966	The Country Wife	Ensemble	Vivian Beaumont Theatre	<ref name=pb>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1975	Romeo and Juliet	Juliet Capulet	Los Angeles Free Shakespeare Society	<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Open access</ref>
1981–1982	Amadeus	Costanze Weber	Broadhurst Theatre	<ref name=pb/>
1982	Romeo and Juliet	Juliet Capulet	Seattle Repertory Theatre	<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
1983	Blithe Spirit	Elvira	Festival Theatre, Santa Fe, New Mexico	<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Open access</ref>
1983–1984	Heartbreak House	Ellie Dunn	Circle in the Square Theatre	<ref name=pb/>
1984	The Glass Menagerie	Laura	Festival Theatre, Santa Fe, New Mexico	<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Open access</ref>
1987	Three Sisters	Masha	Williamstown Theatre Festival	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1988	The Road to Mecca	Elsa Barlow	Promenade Theater, New York	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1990	The Heidi Chronicles	Heidi	Doolittle Theatre, Los Angeles	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1994	Broken Glass	Sylvia Gellburg	Booth Theatre	<ref name=pb/>
1997	Three Sisters	Olga	Criterion Center Stage Right	<ref name=pb/>
2002	The Guys	Joan	The Bat Theatre Company, New York	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2002	Ghosts	Mrs. A.	Classical Stage Co.	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2004	The Exonerated		Bleecker Street Theatre	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2004	Celadine	Celadine	George Street Playhouse	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2006	A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop	Elizabeth Bishop	59E59 Theaters	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2006	The Coast of Utopia: Part I	Varvara	Vivian Beaumont Theatre	<ref name=pb/>
2006–2007	The Coast of Utopia: Part II	Maria Ogarev	Vivian Beaumont Theatre	<ref name=pb/>
2008	The Waters of March		Summer Shorts Festival, New York	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2010	A Little Night Music	Desiree Armfeldt	Opera Theatre of Saint Louis	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2011	We Live Here	Maggie	Manhattan Theatre Club	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2019	Lady in the Dark	Dr. Brooks	New York City Center	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Albums

List of albums, with selected chart positions and certifications, showing other relevant details

Title	Album details	Peak chart positions					Certifications
		US <ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>	[[Top Country Albums|US Template:Small]] <ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>	AUS <ref name="Kent">Template:Cite book</ref>	CAN <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>		[[RPM (magazine)|CAN Template:Small]] <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Honeysuckle Rose Template:Small	Released: July 18, 1980 Label: Columbia Formats: LP, cassette	11	1	3	24	4	MC: GoldTemplate:Certification Cite Ref RIAA: PlatinumTemplate:Certification Cite Ref
Born In a Trunk<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	Released: April 7, 2023 Label: Queen of the Castle Records Formats: Digital

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Nominated work	Outcome	Template:Tooltip
1984	Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Yentl	Template:Nominated	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play	Heartbreak House	Template:Nominated	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1987	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress – Miniseries or Television film	Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna	Template:Nominated	<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1988	Obie Awards	Distinguished Performance by an Actress	The Road to Mecca	Template:Win	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Actress in a Play		Template:Nominated	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1989	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical	Crossing Delancey	Template:Nominated	<ref name=":1" />
1994	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Actress in a Play	Broken Glass	Template:Nominated	<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
2001	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture	Traffic	Template:Win	<ref>"Nominations announced for the 7th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". Screen Actors Guild. 30 January 2001. Archived from the original on 31 October 2001. Retrieved 18 June 2021.</ref>

External links

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