Early life
Wiest was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Her father was a college dean and former psychiatric social worker for the U.S. Army, and her Scottish-born mother, Anne, worked as a nurse; her parents met in Algiers. She has two brothers: Greg and Don Wiest. Wiest's original ambition was to be a ballerina, but in late high school she switched her goal to theatre. She made her film debut in 1980 in It's My Turn, but did not establish herself as a film actress until her association with Woody Allen during the 1980s.
Stage career
Wiest studied theatre at the universidad of Maryland, leaving after her third term in order to tour with a Shakespearean troupe, eventually appearing in a supporting role in the New York Shakespeare Festival production Ashes. She appeared at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT, playing the título role in Hedda Gabler, and understudied off-Broadway in Kurt Vonnegut's Happy Birthday, Wanda June at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. She made her Broadway debut in Robert Anderson's Solitaire/Double Solitaire, taking over in the role of the daughter in 1971. She landed a four-year job as a member of the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., appearing in many plays including a memorable Emily in "Our Town," Honey in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," and leading roles in "The Dybbuk," "The Lower Depths," and "Heartbreak House." She also toured the USSR with the Arena Stage Company.
In 1976, Wiest went to the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and played leading roles in Amlin Gray's Pirates and Christopher Durang's A History of the American Film. At Joe Papp's Public Theatre she took over the lead in Ashes, and played Cassandra in Agamemnon, directed por Andrei Şerban. She appeared in two plays por Tina Howe, Museum and the The Art of Dining. In the latter, Wiest's role as the shy and awkward authoress Elizabeth Barrow potro, colt won every off-Broadway theatre award for her performance: an Obie Award, a Theatre World Award, and the Clarence Derwent Award, dado yearly for the most promising performance in New York theatre. In early 1980, she appeared on Broadway in Frankenstein, directed por Tom Moore, portrayed Desdemona in Othello opposite James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer, and co-starred with John Lithgow in Christopher Durang's romantic screwball comedy Beyond Therapy, directed por John Madden. (A few years later she played opposite Lithgow again in the Herbert Ross film Footloose). Also in the 80s she was acclaimed for her performances in Hedda Gabler, directed por Lloyd Richards at Yale Repertory Theatre, and in Harold Pinter's A Kind of Alaska, Janusz Glowacki's Hunting Cockroaches, and Lanford Wilson's Serenading Louie.
Films
Once Wiest was established as a strong film actress through her work in Woody Allen's films, she was available for the stage less frequently, though she performed in the 1990s in In the Summer House, Square One, Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl, and Naomi Wallace's One Flea Spare. In 2003, she appeared with Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei in Oscar Wilde's Salome. In 2005, she starred in Kathleen Tolan's Memory House, and then at lincoln Center in the late Wendy Wasserstein's final play Third, directed por Daniel Sullivan.
Under Allen's direction, Wiest won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). She followed her Academy Award success with performances in The lost Boys (1987) and Bright Lights, Big City (1988) before starring with Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, Keanu Reeves and Martha Plimpton in Ron Howard's Parenthood, for which she received her segundo Oscar nomination.
In 1990, Wiest starred in Edward Scissorhands. She returned to Woody Allen in 1994 for Bullets Over Broadway, a comedy set in 1920s New York City, winning her segundo Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Helen Sinclair, a boozy, glamorous, and neurotic estrella of the stage. She appeared in the film Practical Magic (1998) and the televisión mini-series The 10th Kingdom (2000). From 2000 to 2002, Wiest portrayed interim District Attorney Nora Lewin in the long-running NBC crime drama Law & Order.
Personal life
Wiest has never been married but has two adopted children born in 1987 and in 1991. She graduated from the universidad of Maryland in 1969 with a degree in Arts and Sciences.[6]
She was in a long term relationship with Hollywood agent, Samuel Cohn for many years.
