Biography
Mare Winningham is a critically acclaimed performer on stage, television, and occasionally feature films. She began her career performing a song on TV's notorious
Gong Show. While playing Maria in a high school production of The Sound of Music, opposite classmate
Kevin Spacey, Winningham was spotted by Hollywood agent
Meyer Mishkin who landed her a role in the short-lived TV Western series The Young Pioneers in 1978. This led to her first TV movie,
Special Olympics. For her role as an independent-minded farmer's daughter in 1980's
Amber Waves, she won an Emmy. That year, Winningham made her feature-film debut starring opposite
Paul Simon in Robert M. Young's One-Trick Pony. She fared better in her next film,
Threshold (1981), where she played the recipient of an artificial heart. Winningham then went on to play a number of supporting roles and the occasional lead in a series of unremarkable films. She continues to fare much better on television, where she has appeared in popular films such as
The Thorn Birds (1983) and Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (1984). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide