A five-time Golden Globe nominee, Marilu Henner has starred in over thirty films and television movies and a total of nine seasons on two highly successful Emmy® award-winning classic TV sitcoms.
Throughout her extensive acting career, Henner has worked with several legendary directors and has played opposite Hollywood’s biggest stars. Her film career began in the 1977 sleeper hit, “Between the Lines,” starring Jeff Goldblum. Then, Henner flew to Hollywood to land the role opposite Richard Gere in Robert Mulligan’s “Bloodbrothers.” She played a girl pursued by Burt Reynolds in “The Man Who Loved Women,” and again starred with Reynolds as Shirley MacLaine’s buddy in the star-studded comedy “Cannonball Run II.” Henner also appeared in the cult classic “Johnny Dangerously” with Michael Keaton, and “Perfect” and “Chains of Gold” with John Travolta. Her award-winning role as Steve Martin’s girlfriend-from-hell in “L.A. Story” was followed by the Peter Bogdanovich comedy “Noises Off” where she starred with Michael Caine, Carol Burnett and Christopher Reeve.
In 1987, Henner was nominated for an ACE Award for Jules Pfeiffer’s HBO’s movie “Grown Ups.” She also starred in “Love With the Perfect Stranger,” “Grand Larceny,” “Lady Killers,” “Batman: Mask of Phantasm” and “Fight For Justice: The Nancy Conn Story.” Henner played Molly Brown in the miniseries “Titanic,” also starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Television audiences know Henner best from her Emmy® winning classic TV sitcoms, first as Elaine Nardo in “Taxi” (1978-1983) with Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Tony Danza, Jeff Conaway, Christopher Lloyd and Andy Kaufman; and later as Ava Evans Newton, the wife of Burt Reynolds in “Evening Shade” (1990-1994) which also starred Ossie Davis, Hal Holbrook, Charles Durning and Elizabeth Ashley.
Henner has also made her mark on stage, starring in six hit Broadway shows. She created the role of Marty in the original production of Grease and then later reprised the role on Broadway. After a very successful run in film and on television, Henner returned to Broadway with the comedy Social Security; then later starred as Roxie Hart in Chicago. The following year, she played Annie in the national tour of Annie Get Your Gun.
She hosted and executive-produced three of her own talk shows. Her most recent is a series of interstitial mini-segments designed to teach and inspire positive lifestyle choices called “The Art Of Living With Marilu Henner,” which aired in 2009. Henner was featured as a competitor on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” hosted “America’s Ballroom Challenge” on PBS for two years, and recently guest starred on “Numb3rs,” “Party Down,” “My Boys,” and in the series finale of “ER.”
A multiple New York Times bestselling author, Henner has written eight books on health, fitness and lifestyle, and an autobiography. She lectures frequently throughout the country as a keynote speaker and motivator for universities, interest groups, and corporations on topics ranging from diet and fitness, women’s issues, surviving cancer and child psychology, to lifestyle, entertainment and business organization strategies.
In all her achievements, Henner is most proud of her success as a mother of two boys, Nick (15) and Joey (14), and her loving relationship with her husband, Michael Brown.
