Kate Burton (actress)

Kate Burton
Burton in 2014
Born	Katherine Burton (1957-09-10) September 10, 1957 Geneva, Switzerland
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1969; 1982–present
Spouse(s)	Michael Ritchie (m. 1985)
Children	Morgan (b. 1988) Charlotte (b. 1998)
Parent(s)	Sybil Burton Richard Burton

Katherine "Kate" Burton (born September 10, 1957) is a Swiss-born Welsh-American actress, daughter of actor Richard Burton and Sybil Burton. On television, Burton received critical acclaim for performances in Shonda Rhimes's drama series as Ellis Grey on Grey's Anatomy, and as Vice President Sally Langston on Scandal. She has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Tony Awards.

Early life

Burton was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the daughter of producer Sybil Burton (née Williams; 1929–2013) and actor Richard Burton (1925–1984). She was thus the stepdaughter of Elizabeth Taylor and of Sybil's second husband Jordan Christopher. In 1979, Burton earned a bachelor's degree in Russian Studies and European History from Brown University. She was also on the board of Production Workshop, one of the university's student theatre groups. She furthered her devotion to theatre by studying at Yale University School of Drama, from which she graduated in 1983. In 2007, Burton was given an honorary doctorate from Brown University.

Career

Stage work

Burton's first notable role on Broadway in a 1982 production of the Noël Coward play Present Laughter, which was directed by George C. Scott. The following year, she appeared in the Broadway production of Doonesbury, playing J.J. Several key roles followed, including roles in Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter and Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane.

In 2002, she portrayed two roles and was nominated for a Tony Award for both. She was nominated as Best Actress in a Play for her portrayal of the title role in Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, and for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the role of Pinhead/Mrs. Kendal in the revival of The Elephant Man. This dual nomination made her one of only five actors, along with Amanda Plummer, Dana Ivey, Jan Maxwell and Mark Rylance to be Tony-nominated for two acting awards in the same year.

Burton in the play The Cherry Orchard

In 2006 Burton was in the Off-Broadway play opposite Tony Goldwyn in The Water's Edge. The same year she was nominated for Best Leading Actress again in 2006 in W. Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife. In 2007, she played Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard at Boston's Huntington Theatre. Burton was also part of the cast of the Broadway musical Spring Awakening. She started on December 21, 2007 and replaced actress Christine Estabrook in the role of the Adult Women. Kristine Nielsen took over for her on March 2 for a short stint until Estabrook assumed the role again. She played the role of actress Katharine Cornell in "The Grand Manner" during the summer of 2010 at Lincoln Center in New York.

Film and television

Early films of Burton's include Alice in Wonderland, Anne of the Thousand Days, Big Trouble in Little China, The First Wives Club, Life with Mikey and The Ice Storm. Burton has said of these roles that she usually plays "the sweet wife, or the sweet dead wife". Burton has also appeared in a number of roles in independent films.

Burton has been perhaps most prolific in her work on television. She made many appearances in the late 1980s and 1990s on episodic television, including appearances on Spenser: For Hire, All My Children, and Brooklyn Bridge. In 1996, Burton won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a mother dying of breast cancer in the ABC Afterschool Special, 'Notes For My Daughter'. More recently, she made guest appearances as recurring characters on Law & Order, The Practice, The West Wing, Judging Amy and Medium. She also appeared on the HBO miniseries Empire Falls.

Her recent recurring television roles both involved a subplot concerning Alzheimer's disease. On the FX cable network's Rescue Me, she played the role of Rose, a friend and possible romantic interest to Chief Jerry Reilly. Reilly's wife is in a facility with the disease and Rose, having cared for her husband who was also an Alzheimer's victim, is hired by Jerry to provide assistance and emotional support. Also, in perhaps her most visible and well-known role to date as the mother of Dr. Meredith Grey (the titular character on the well-known ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy), Burton played Dr. Ellis Grey, the former trailblazing surgeon, who dies of Alzheimer's. In 2006 and 2007, Burton was nominated for an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Ellis Grey. In 2011, Burton appeared as a veteran monster hunter in the opening episodes of the NBC supernatural drama Grimm. From 2012 until 2014, she played the extreme right-wing Vice President Sally Langston, a secondary antagonist, in the ABC hit show Scandal created by Shonda Rhimes. In 2015, Burton earned a leading role in the remake of Martyrs.

Other work

Burton has narrated numerous audiobooks, including works by: Patricia Cornwell, Lisa Scottoline, Iris Johansen, and Dean Koontz. Kate Burton appeared in 1984 with her father Richard Burton in the television mini-series Ellis Island.

Personal life

In June 1985, Burton married Michael Ritchie, Artistic Director of the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles and one of the producers of the Broadway musicals The Drowsy Chaperone and Curtains. They had met in 1982, while Ritchie was stage manager of a revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City in which Burton was playing the character Daphne. They have two children, a son Morgan Ivor (born May 14, 1988) and a daughter Charlotte Frances (born January 19, 1998).

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1969	Anne of the Thousand Days	Serving Maid	Uncredited
1984	Ellis Island	Vanessa Ogden	Television film
1986	Big Trouble in Little China	Margo Litzenberger
1987	Uncle Tom's Cabin	Ophelia	Television film
1993	Life with Mikey	Mrs. Burns
1993	Love Matters	Deborah	Television film
1996	August	Helen Blathwaite
1996	The First Wives Club	Woman in Bed
1996	Mistrial	Katherine Donohue	Television film
1997	The Ice Storm	Dorothy Franklin
1997	Ellen Foster	Abigail Montford	Television film
1998	Celebrity	Cheryl
2000	The Opportunists	Rest Home Sister
2002	Unfaithful	Tracy
2002	Swimfan	Carla Cronin
2002	Obsessed	Sara Miller	Television film
2003	The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer	Connie Posey	Television film
2003	The Paper Mache Chase	Martha	Short film
2005	Stay	Mrs. Letham
2005	Empire Falls	Cindy Whiting	Television film
2006	Sherrybaby	Marcia Swanson
2007	Lovely by Surprise	Helen
2008	What Just Happened	Dr. Randall
2008	Quid Pro Quo	Merilee
2008	Max Payne	Nicole Horne
2009	The Kings of Appletown	Aunt Birdy
2009	Spooner	Alice Spooner
2010	Remember Me	Janine
2010	Consent	Susan
2010	127 Hours	Aron's Mom
2011	Puncture	Senator O'Reilly
2012	Liberal Arts	Susan
2012	2 Days in New York	Bella
2012	Mariachi Gringo	Anne
2013	Adam Shaw	Dr. Wilson
2014	Barefoot	Mrs. Wheeler
2014	Shiva and May	Martha
2015	Martyrs	Unknown

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Great Performances	Alice	Episode: "Alice in Wonderland"
1985	Evergreen	Agatha Bradford	Episode: "1.2"
1987–1988	Spenser: For Hire	Randy Lofficier	2 episodes
1988	American Playhouse	Agnes Bolton O'Neill	Episode: "Journey Into Genius"
1992	Law & Order	Sister Bettina	Episode: "Sisters of Mercy"
1992	Home Fires	Anne Kramer	6 episodes
1993	Brooklyn Bridge	Susan Lowenberg Jones	Episode: "Keeping Up with the Joneses"
1994	Monty	Fran Richardson	13 episodes
1994	All My Children	Dr. Renee Peters	Unknown episodes
1995	ABC Afterschool Special	Brenda Gardner	Episode: "Notes for My Daughter" Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special
1997–2004	The Practice	A.D.A. Susan Alexander	9 episodes
2001–2009	Law & Order	Erica Gardner	4 episodes
2001	100 Centre Street	Sheila Byrne	Episode: "My Brother's Keeper"
2001	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	Stephanie Uffland	Episode: "The Pardoner's Tale"
2004	The West Wing	Sarah Brainerd	Episode: "Slow News Day"
2005	Judging Amy	Dr. Sheri Jordan	Episode: "Silent Era"
2005	American Masters	Voice of Novels	Episode: "Ernest Hemingway: Rivers to the Sea"
2005	Numb3rs	Anthropologist	Episode: "Bones of Contention"
2005–2006	Rescue Me	Rose	6 episodes
2005–present	Grey's Anatomy	Ellis Grey	17 episodes Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (2006–07)
2006	Justice	Sarah Miller	Episode: "Death Spiral"
2007	Supreme Courtships	Justice Suzanne Mary Lynch	Unsold TV pilot
2008	Medium	Bonnie Barrister	Episode: "To Have and to Hold"
2009	Eleventh Hour	Gepetto / Miranda Cochran	Episode: "Pinocchio"
2009	Washingtonienne	Joy	Episode: "Pilot"
2009–2012	The Good Wife	Victoria Adler	3 episodes
2010	The Deep End	Grace Graham	Episode: "Pilot"
2011	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Annette Cole	Episode: "Bully"
2011	Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior	Deirdre Norris	Episode: "Smother"
2011	The Closer	Kate Wycoff	Episode: "Forgive Us Our Trespasses"
2011	Grimm	Marie Kessler	2 episodes
2012	Veep	Barbara Hallowes	2 episodes
2012	Made in Jersey	Lorraine Beckett	Episode: "Cacti"
2012–present	Scandal	Vice President Sally Langston	23 episodes Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (2014)
2013	Revolution	Dr. Jane Warren	Episode: "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia"
2014	Rake	Holly Phillips	Episode: "Hey, Good Looking"
2014-2015	Extant (TV series)	Fiona Stanton

External links

• Kate Burton at the Internet Movie Database
• Kate Burton at the Internet Broadway Database
• Kate Burton at the Internet Off-Broadway Database