Ellen Barkin

Ellen Rona Barkin was born on April 16, 1954, in the Bronx, New York, to Evelyn Barkin, a hospital administrator at Jamaica Hospital, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman. Her family is Jewish, with roots tracing back to Siberia and the Ukrainian-Polish border. Barkin grew up in Flushing, New York, where she attended Parsons Junior High School before earning her high school diploma from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts. She went on to Hunter College, where she double majored in history and drama, and later trained at the Actors Studio in New York City. She studied acting for ten years before her first audition.

Barkin's screen career began with the 1982 Barry Levinson comedy-drama Diner, which served as her breakthrough. She followed that with roles in Tender Mercies and Eddie and the Cruisers, both in 1983, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension in 1984. Her subsequent film work included The Big Easy in 1986, opposite Dennis Quaid, and Sea of Love and Johnny Handsome, both in 1989, the latter two opposite Al Pacino and Mickey Rourke respectively. For her leading role in the 1991 film Switch, Barkin received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Her film credits continued through the following decades with This Boy's Life (1993), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), Palindromes (2004), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), Brooklyn's Finest (2009), and The Cobbler (2014), among others.

In television, Barkin earned a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for her performance in the 1997 television film Before Women Had Wings. She starred as Jane Forrest on the NBC sitcom The New Normal from 2012 to 2013, and appeared in the Showtime comedy-drama series Happyish in 2015, playing Dani Kirschenbloom. From 2016 through 2019, she played Janine "Smurf" Cody, the matriarch of a crime family, in the TNT drama series Animal Kingdom, which was based on a 2010 Australian film in which the character was portrayed by Jacki Weaver. Barkin also voiced the opening of each episode of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour on XM's Deep Tracks.

Prior to her Broadway career, Barkin appeared in off-Broadway productions, including a role in Extremities alongside Susan Sarandon, and a performance in Eden Court at the Promenade Theater that drew notice from New York Times critic Frank Rich. Her Broadway work spans from 2002 to 2011 and includes Short Talks on the Universe, 8, and The Normal Heart. In The Normal Heart, she made her Broadway debut playing Dr. Brookner, a role for which she received the 2011 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play. That same year she also received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance and a Theatre World Award.

Barkin has producing credits that include Letters to Juliet, Shit Year, both from 2010, and Another Happy Day from 2011. In 2005, she established a film production company with her brother George. Barkin has two children, Jack Daniel, born October 28, 1989, and Romy Marion, born November 18, 1992, from her marriage to actor Gabriel Byrne. The two separated in 1993 and divorced in 1999. She subsequently married businessman Ronald Perelman in 2000; that marriage ended in divorce in 2006. Following the divorce, a collection of jewels titled Magnificent Jewels from the Collection of Ellen Barkin sold at Christie's in New York in October 2006 for $20,369,200.