The petite, brunette Murphy garnered critical kudos and a handful of awards, including a 1994 Best Actress Tony, for her intense, dramatic portrayal of Fosca in the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine stage musical "Passion". Portraying an ugly woman wracked by an unnamed illness who falls in love with a handsome soldier, she mesmerized audiences with the raw power of her performance. Murphy had honed her craft in the Broadway and off-Broadway arena moving from the chorus ("They're Playing Our Song") to playing leading roles ("Drood", "Song of Singapore"). She made her feature debut as a tough cop investigating a murder in William Friedkin's "Jade" (1995). That same year, she brilliantly delineated an unhappily married woman whose ex-husband becomes embroiled in a murder investigation in the ABC series "Murder One". In 1996, she returned to the stage co-starring opposite Lou Diamond Phillips in a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The King & I" for which she earned a second Tony Award as Lead Actress in a Musical.
Family
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Father: Robert Murphy.
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Mother: Jean Murphy.
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Step-daughter: Justine Elliott. born c. 1976
Education
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The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, New York, New York
Milestones
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1979 Broadway debut They re Playing Our Song (date approximate)
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1986 Played first lead on Broadway, replacing Betty Buckley in Drood (a.k.a. The Mystery of Edwin Drood )
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1987 TV debut, as a singer in A Table at Ciro s (PBS)
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1992 Appeared off-Broadway in Song of Singapore
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1992 First speaking role on TV, Law and Order (NBC)
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1994 Breakthrough Broadway role, Fosca, in the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine show Passion
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1995 Appeared in recurring role of Francesca Cross on Murder One (ABC)
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1995 Feature film debut Jade
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1996 Co-starred with Lou Diamond Phillips on Broadway in revival of The King & I
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1996 Recreated her stage role of Fosca in TV production of Passion (PBS)
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1998 Made guest appearance as an accused murderer on the cross-over episodes of Fox s Ally McBeal and ABC s The Practice
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1998 Played Mary Todd Lincoln in The Day Lincoln Was Shot (TNT)
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2000 Co-starred with Peter Gallagher in the feature Center Stage , directed by Nicholas Hytner
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2000 Headlined the Encores! concert staging of Wonderful Town
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2001 TV series debut as regular on the ABC sitcom What About Joan?
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2002 Played the title in Tony Kushner directed, Helen ; performed Off-Broadway at the Public Theatre
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2003 Starred in the musical Wonderful Town ; received a Tony nomination
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2004 Portrayed the wife of Alfred Molina character Dr. Otto Octavius in Spider-Man 2
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2006 Co-starred in The Fountain, written and directed by Darren Aronofsky
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2007 Played Lotte Lenya in the Kurt Weil jukebox musical LoveMusik ; earned a Tony nomination
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2007 Played Scarlett Johansson s mother in The Nanny Diaries
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Born in Queens, New York
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Moved with family at age 11 to Topsfield, Massachusetts
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Raised on Long Island