Cynthia Nixon

Born: April 9 1966

Where: New York, USA
The Emmy Award-winning actress is best known for her portrayal of lawyer Miranda Hobbes in the comedy Sex and the City.

The daughter of an actress and a radio journalist, she began acting at the age of 12 as the object of a wealthy schoolmate's crush in the TV special The Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid.

She made her feature debut co-starring with Kristy McNichol and Tatum O'Neal in Little Darlings in 1980.

Nixon made her Broadway debut as the bratty Dinah Lord in a 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story.

Alternating between film, TV and stage she worked on projects including the 1982 TV movie My Body, My Child, the features Prince of the City and I Am the Cheese.

Maintaining her studies, she graduated from Hunter College High School and made theatrical history while a freshman at Barnard College in 1984.

She simultaneously appearing in two hit Broadway plays directed by Mike Nichols - Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing with Jeremy Irons and David Rabe's Hurlyburly.

She also played Mozart's tearful maid in the 1984 Oscar-winning Amadeus, directed by Milos Forman.

Two years later, she landed her first major supporting part as the intelligent girlfriend who aids her teenage boyfriend (Christopher Collet) in building a nuclear bomb in Marshall Brickman's The Manhattan Project.

She replaced Marcia Gay Harden as a pill-popping Mormon wife whose husband reveals his homosexuality in Tony Kushner's landmark 1994 two-part Angels in America.

Nixon was subsequently a founding member of the theatrical troupe The Drama Dept, which included Sarah Jessica Parker, Dylan Baker, John Cameron Mitchell and Billy Crudup.

On the big screen, she contributed supporting performances to Addams Family Values (1993), Marvin's Room (1996) and The Out-of-Towners (1999).

She raised her profile significantly as one of the four regulars of Sex and the City, as the no-nonsense lawyer Miranda in support of series star Sarah Jessica Parker.

After Emmy nominations as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2002 and 2003, Nixon took home the trophy in 2004 for the series' final season.

The immense popularity of the series led Nixon to her first leading role as a video artisit in 2000's Advice From A Caterpillar.

In 2002, she also landed the part of Mrs Piggee in the indie comedy Igby Goes Down and went on to appear in ER and also had a stint in the medical drama House.

In 2006, Nixon won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Rabbit Hole.

Offscreen, she was had two children with English professor Danny Mozes (who she dated until 2003) before entering a same sex relationship with education activist Christine Marinoni.

In 2008, she appeared with the regular cast for the big screen version of Sex in the City.