Holland Taylor

Holland Taylor, born January 14, 1943, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an American actress and playwright whose career spans Broadway, television, and film. The daughter of Virginia Taylor, a painter, and C. Tracy Taylor, an attorney, she attended Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school in West Chester, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1960. She went on to major in theatre at Bennington College, earning her degree in 1964, after which she relocated to New York City to pursue acting.

Taylor's stage career began in the 1960s, and she remained active on Broadway through 2016. Her Broadway credits include Something Old, Something New, Butley (1972), We Interrupt This Program... (1975), Moose Murders (1983), and The Front Page (2016). She also appeared in A. R. Gurney's The Cocktail Hour, for which she received a Drama Desk nomination. In 2009, Taylor began researching and writing a one-woman play about the late Texas Governor Ann Richards. Originally titled Money, Marbles, and Chalk, the production was first workshopped in May 2010 at The Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston, Texas. It was later retitled and opened in Chicago on November 16, 2011, before engagements at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and ultimately on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre on March 7, 2013. For writing and starring in Ann, Taylor received both a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance, both in 2013. A PBS Great Performances broadcast of the play, recorded at the Zach Theater in Austin, Texas, aired on June 19, 2020. Taylor returned to the role in the 2022 West Coast premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse.

On television, Taylor first gained wide recognition playing Tom Hanks' demanding boss on the ABC sitcom Bosom Buddies, which ran from 1980 to 1982, a role she took at the encouragement of her acting coach, Stella Adler. She subsequently appeared as Jill Ollinger on the soap opera All My Children from 1981 to 1983, and co-starred with Lisa Eilbacher in the ABC detective series Me and Mom in 1985. She played opposite Alan Arkin in the ABC sitcom Harry in 1987, and from 1992 to 1993 starred alongside John Forsythe and David Hyde Pierce in Norman Lear's The Powers That Be, playing the wife of Forsythe's U.S. senator character. Her role as high-powered newspaper editor Camilla Dane on The Naked Truth ran from 1995 to 1998, and she was one of the few cast members to remain through the show's entire run despite multiple retoolings.

Taylor's portrayal of Judge Roberta Kittleson on ABC's The Practice, a role that began as a single appearance and extended from 1998 to 2003, earned her the 1999 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. From 2003 to 2015, she played Evelyn Harper, the overbearing mother of Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer's characters, on Two and a Half Men, receiving four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for that role. Additional television credits include recurring appearances as Peggy Peabody on The L Word from 2004 to 2008, Ida Silver on Mr. Mercedes from 2017 to 2019, and Alice Lewis in the TNT series Good Behavior in 2017. In 2020, her portrayal of studio executive Ellen Kincaid in the Netflix miniseries Hollywood earned her an eighth Primetime Emmy Award nomination, this time for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.

Taylor's film work includes Romancing the Stone (1984), The Jewel of the Nile (1985), Alice (1990), To Die For (1995), One Fine Day (1996), George of the Jungle (1997), The Truman Show (1998), Keeping the Faith (2000), Happy Accidents (2000), Legally Blonde (2001), The Wedding Date (2005), Baby Mama (2008), Gloria Bell (2018), Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020), and The Stand In (2020).

In her personal life, Taylor stated in a November 2015 radio interview with WNYC that she was in a relationship with a woman and that most of her relationships have been with women. In August 2020, she told the LGBTQ&A podcast that she is gay. Her partner, actress Sarah Paulson, confirmed their relationship in March 2016, noting they had been dating since early 2015 after first meeting at a dinner party around 2006. Taylor has also served on the Honorary Board of Aid for AIDS in Los Angeles and participated in the organization's annual fundraiser, Best in Drag Show.