Glenn Close as Patty Hewes | Damages on FX
Glenn Close
Patty Hewes
Glenn Close portrays high-stakes litigator "Patty Hewes," who finds herself back in the national spotlight nine months after her triumph in the UNR case. Now, as court-appointed trustee responsible for tracking down assets swindled from investors in the largest financial fraud in U.S. history, Patty faces her most formidable adversary, the Tobin family. While her bare-knuckle tactics have earned her a top spot in the pantheon of American lawyers, Patty’s personal life may never recover.
Career Highlights
Emmy®, Golden Globe® and Tony® Award-winning actress Glenn Close headlines the critically acclaimed original legal thriller, Damages, on FX, now going into its third season. For her portrayal of high-stakes litigator ‘Patty Hewes,’ Glenn won her second consecutive Emmy Award this year as Best Actress in a Drama Series. She has also won a Golden Globe Award and a SAG nomination for her riveting performance on the show. Prior to Damages, Close won rave reviews and an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of ‘Captain Monica Rawling’ in a season-long story arc on FX’s Emmy winning series The Shield.
Glenn Close made her feature film debut in George Roy Hill’s The World According to Garp. Her performance in the film earned her awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review as well as an Academy Award nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for her performances in Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill; Barry Levinson’s The Natural; Adrian Lyne’s smash Fatal Attraction; and Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons (for which she was also a BAFTA Award nominee).
Close’s other films include Richard Marquand’s Jagged Edge; Barbet Schroeder’s Reversal of Fortune; Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet; István Szabó’s Meeting Venus; Ron Howard’s The Paper; Stephen Herek’s 101 Dalmatians; Kevin Lima’s 102 Dalmatians; Wolfgang Petersen’s Air Force One; Robert Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune; Rose Troche’s The Safety of Objects; Merchant Ivory’s Le Divorce; Chris Terrio’s Heights; Rodrigo García’s Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her and Nine Lives; and Lajos Koltai’s Evening.
She has been nominated eight other times for a Golden Globe Award, winning for Damages and her performance in Andrei Konchalovsky’s television adaptation of The Lion in Winter (which also earned her a SAG Award). The latter is among the television projects that have brought her ten Emmy Award nominations, with a win for her portrayal of real-life hero ‘Margarethe Cammermeyer’ in Jeff Bleckner’s Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, which Close executive produced.
Her other notable films for television include Jack Hofsiss’ taped staging of The Elephant Man; Randa Haines’ Something About Amelia; Jack Gold’s Stones for Ibarra; Christopher Reeve’s In the Gloaming (for which she won a CableACE Award) and Richard Pearce’s musical remake of South Pacific, in which she starred and sang as ‘Nellie Forbush,’ and which she executive-produced. She executive produced and starred thrice opposite Christopher Walken in the Sarah, Plain and Tall trilogy, directed, alternately, by Glenn Jordan and Joseph Sargent. She likewise executive produced and starred in The Ballad of Lucy Whipple, directed by Jeremy Kagan.
Glenn Close made her professional theater and Broadway, debut in Harold Prince’s revival of Love for Love. Other early stage credits include Paul Giovanni’s The Crucifer of Blood and Simone Benmussa’s adaptation of The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, for which she won an Obie Award. Close’s first Tony Award nomination came for her role in Joe Layton’s musical Barnum and she subsequently won Tony Awards for her performances in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden, both directed by Mike Nichols.
For her portrayal of ‘Norma Desmond’ in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Sunset Boulevard, Close won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and a Dramalogue Award. She would later reteam with the show’s director, Trevor Nunn, in London for his Royal National Theatre revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.
She has been honored with a Crystal Award from Women In Film; a GLAAD Media Award; a People’s Choice Award; the National Association of Theatre Owners’ Female Star of the Year award at ShoWest and a Gotham Award for her contributions to the New York independent filmmaking community. She is a trustee emeritus of The Sundance Institute, having served as a board member for 16 years.
Glenn Close recently participated in the launch of BringChange2Mind.org, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to confronting, head-on, the stigma associated with mental illness. It was created by Close together with the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF), Fountain House and Garen and Shari Staglin of IMHRO (International Mental Health Research Organization), and has the support of the major mental health organizations in this country.
The idea for this campaign evolved out of Close’s first-hand observation of battles with mental illness within her family and subsequent volunteer work at Fountain House, a globally-acclaimed, New York based, clubhouse model program that provides people with mental illness critical access to education, employment and community. Close actively supports Puppies Behind Bars and their program Dog Tags: Service Dogs for Those Who’ve Served Us. She is also a Founding Member of the Panthera Conservation Advisory Committee. Panthera is an international nonprofit whose sole mission is conservation of the world’s 36 species of wild cats.