Robin Bartlett

Robin Bartlett is an American actress born on April 22, 1951, in New York City, where she was raised in Manhattan by two parents who both worked as psychologists. She began performing at a young age, first appearing onstage in a production of The Servant of Two Masters at the World's Fair in Queens. Bartlett attended the High School of Performing Arts and went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Boston University in 1973. After graduating, she supported herself as a secretary while pursuing acting work.

Her professional stage career began in 1973 with the Theatre Company of Boston, where she appeared in a production of Richard III alongside Al Pacino and Lance Henriksen. She also performed with the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where she met actor Alan Rosenberg, whom she married in 1976; the two divorced in 1984. Bartlett made her Broadway debut in 1975 in Yentl, in which she had a supporting role and also served as understudy for the title character. Her Broadway work continued through 2007 and included The World of Sholom Aleichem and Prelude to a Kiss.

Away from Broadway, Bartlett appeared in a 1986 Circle Repertory Theatre production of The Early Girl opposite Demi Moore, earning both an Obie Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for her performance. That Drama Desk recognition preceded her 1989 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Play. In June 2010, it was announced that Bartlett would play Hannah Pitt in the Signature Theatre Company's twentieth-anniversary production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America.

Bartlett made her feature film debut in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate in 1980. Over the following two decades she accumulated supporting roles in a wide range of films, including Sophie's Choice (1982), Baby Boom (1987), Moonstruck (1987), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Alice (1990), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Regarding Henry (1991), If Looks Could Kill (1991), Lean on Me, Dangerous Minds (1995), and City of Angels (1998). Her performance in If Looks Could Kill earned her a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She played Bridget Kearns in Martin Scorsese's thriller Shutter Island (2010), appeared in the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), and had roles in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans (2022) and the independent horror film Shelby Oaks (2024). She also starred in the 2014 film H., for which she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female in 2016.

In television, Bartlett is recognized for recurring roles in two NBC sitcoms, The Powers That Be and Mad About You, in which she played the sister of a filmmaker. She also had a recurring role as a television producer in Sisters, appeared in recurring guest roles on Judging Amy from 2000 to 2004 and Dragnet from 2003 to 2004, and played the dean of a private school in an episode of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. In 2013, she appeared in two consecutive seasons of American Horror Story, portraying Miranda Crump in the second season, Asylum, and Cecily Pembroke in the third season, Coven.

In her personal life, Bartlett married fiction writer Terence Cannon in 1990; the couple has one son, Eamon, born in 1987. Beginning in 1984, Bartlett and Cannon made their home in Hoboken, New Jersey. Among her stated acting influences are Michael Moriarty and Marlon Brando, and she has named Geraldine Page as her favorite actress.