Marsha Mason

Marsha Mason began her career in New York theater, and also got bit parts in films and TV shows. Later she moved to San Francisco, appearing in a revival of Noel Coward's Private Lives directed by Francis Ford Coppola for the American Conservatory Theater. While in California she got her first substantial screen role, a supporting part in Blume In Love (1973). Meanwhile, her work in repertory caught the attention of director Mark Rydell, who cast her in the lead of his film Cinderella Liberty (1973); she earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a prostitute with a black son. Nevertheless, it was three years berfore her next screen appearance. Mason was again Oscar-nominated for her costarring role in The Goodbye Girl (1977), which increased the regularity of her film work for the next five years but still failed to establish her as a star; moreover, she was twice more nominated for Oscars, bringing her total to four nominations with no victories. Her screen appearances since 1983 have been infrequent, though she continued acting on stage and TV. She married and divorced playwright Neil Simon, who wrote several of the films she appeared in; some critics have suggested that her career suffered because she was overly identified with Simon's work.