Jeannie Berlin

Jeannie Berlin, born Jeannie Brette May on November 1, 1949, in Los Angeles, California, is an American actress and playwright. The daughter of actress, comedienne, screenwriter, and director Elaine May and inventor Marvin May, Berlin adopted her mother's maiden name as her professional stage name.

Berlin's screen career began with a supporting role in the made-for-television film In Name Only, starring Eve Arden. She subsequently appeared in a series of films released in 1970, including Getting Straight, The Strawberry Statement, Move, The Baby Maker, and Bone, followed by Portnoy's Complaint in 1971. Her breakthrough came in 1972 with The Heartbreak Kid, a comedy film directed by her mother and written by Neil Simon. Her performance earned her nominations for both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1975, Berlin took on a leading role in the romantic comedy Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York, and the following year appeared in "Old Fashioned Murder," an episode of the NBC series Columbo.

After a lengthy absence from film and television, Berlin returned in 1990, co-writing and appearing in the comedy-drama In the Spirit, which also starred her mother, Marlo Thomas, and Olympia Dukakis. Throughout the 1990s she performed in a number of off-Broadway productions before making her Broadway debut in 2005 in After the Night and the Music, a play written by Elaine May. In 2012, she appeared in Other Desert Cities at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Berlin's return to film after more than a decade came with Margaret in 2011, a psychological drama starring Anna Paquin, for which she received nominations from the National Society of Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics for Best Supporting Actress. She subsequently appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice in 2014 and Woody Allen's Café Society in 2016. In 2022, she starred in Steven Spielberg's coming-of-age drama The Fabelmans, and in 2023 appeared in You Hurt My Feelings.

Berlin's television work has included the role of prosecutor Helen Weiss in the 2016 HBO miniseries The Night Of, for which she received recognition as a potential Emmy contender. In 2018 she played the President of the United States in the Hulu drama series The First. The following year she was cast as Cyd Peach, the head of the Roys' television news operation, in the HBO drama series Succession, a role she held from 2019 through 2023. In 2020, she appeared in a recurring capacity in the Amazon Prime Video series Hunters, portraying the grandmother of the lead character.