Marcia Gay Harden

Marcia Gay Harden is the fifth of her brothers born to La Jolla on 14 August 1959. Her mother, Beverly (Bushfield), was a housewife, while her father Thad Harold Harden was in the military. She first developed an interest in theatre while living together with family members in Greece and attending plays in Athens. Harden completed her undergraduate studies in Europe at American universities, and then returned to the US and completed her education at the University of Texas. In 1983, Harden earned her MFA from NYU. Though she appeared in a movie as early as 1986, in the largely unnoticed The Imagemaker (1986), her debut role in the mainstream in a television film work, was the hot, sultry woman fatale in the Coen Brothers' cleverly offbeat homage to the gangster movie, Miller's Crossing (1990). Harden's stunning portrayal of Verna who was a mysterious, seductive moll, received positive evaluations. Harden then continued to perform consistently as a supporting character, such as playing Ava Gardner in Sinatra (1992), a television biopic about Frank Sinatra.