Blythe Danner
Born: 3rd February 1943
Where: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The former jazz singer and mother of Gwyneth Paltrow is probably best known for her performance in The Prince of Tides.
After an upbringing in Philadelphia, Danner spent part of 1961 as a foreign exchange student in Germany and was present when the Berlin Wall went up.
When she returned to the USA, she spent a summer singing with a jazz group in Vermont.
She first gained prominence with the Lincoln Center productions Summertime, and The Miser, and her performances led to her first Broadway play.
As Jill Tanner, the free-spirited divorcee who intrigues a blind neighbour in Butterflies Are Free, the actress ascended to stardom and won a Tony Award in the process.
Although she had begun working in television, Danner was not considered enough of a name to reprise her stage role when it came time to film Butterflies Are Free (the part went to Goldie Hawn).
Instead, in 1972, she acted opposite Alan Alda in the thriller To Kill a Clown and displayed her singing voice as Martha Jefferson opposite Ken Howard's Thomas Jefferson in the film of the hit musical 1776.
Other than her portrayal of Robert Duvall's long-suffering wife in The Great Santini, her best work in the second half of the 70s was on the small screen.
She was terrific as the baseball player's spouse in A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story, and as Michael Moriarty's wife in Too Far To Go, adapted from John Updike's short stories.
The 90s saw Danner work frequently with her daughter Paltrow, on stage in Picnic and The Seagull and in the 1992 US miniseries Cruel Doubts.
Danner had one of her best screen roles as Nick Nolte's estranged wife in The Prince of Tides and displayed a comic touch with Meet The Parents.
In 2001, she was cast as the mother of Cameron Diaz and Jordana Brewster in The Invisible Circus, before she tackled her first Broadway musical role as Phyllis in the revival of Follies.
Two years later she played Sylvia Plath's mother (Paltrow played Plath) in the biopic of the poet Sylvia.
In 2004, she reprised her role as Dina Byrnes in the comedy sequel Meet The Fockers.
