Mercedes Ruehl

Biography

Mercedes Ruehl is an award-winning stage, film and television actress. She won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, as well as a Chicago Film Critics Award and Los Angeles Film Critics Award for her role as Anne Napolitano in Terry Gilliam’s film The Fisher King. Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers earned Ruehl Tony, Helen Hayes, and Drama Desk Awards. She received Tony nominations for her roles in The Shadowbox and Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Goat, or Who is Sylvia. She won Obie Awards for Woman Before A Glass, a one-woman show about the life of actress Peggy Guggenheim, as well as Christopher Durang’s The Marriage of Bette and Boo.

She was awarded The Clarence Derwent Award for creating the role of Kate in Other People’s Money, and a Drama Desk nomination for the role of Serafina opposite Anthony LaPaglia in Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo.

Mercedes starred in the 2nd Stage Off-Broadway revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song earlier this year, and recently starred in the production which moved to Broadway with a November 1, 2018 opening and closed January 6, 2019. Ruehl recently wrapped shooting STX’s upcoming feature Hustlers starring J Lo and Constance Wu.

She starred in Richard Greenberg’s The American Plan at the Manhattan Theatre Club and in the premiere of Edward Albee’s The Occupant as Louise Nevelson at The Signature Theatre. At The Old Vic in London she co-starred with Jeff Goldblum in Neil Simon’s Prisoner of Second Avenue. She revived Full Gallop, a one-woman show about Diana Vreeland at The Old Globe in San Diego.

Ruehl came to popular attention with her portrayal as the gun-toting wife of a Mafia don in 1988’s Married to the Mob, which earned her a National Society of Film Critics Award. Her other film credits include Big opposite Tom Hanks; the romantic drama For Roseanna opposite Jean Reno; Gurinder Chadha’s What’s Cooking?, More Dogs than Bones, Another You, Heartburn; 84 Charing Cross Road; Leader of the Band; The Secret of My Succe$s; Slaves of New York, Crazy People, and Chu and Blossom.

Her television credits include guest & recur roles on Bull, Life in Pieces, NCIS, Mysteries of Laura, Two Broke Girls, Power, Luck (series regular), Law & Order: SVU, Subway Stories: Tales from The Underground, Indictment: The McMartin Trial, North Shore Fish, Psych, Monday Mornings, A Girl Like Me, Frasier, & starred in HBO’s Golden Globe and Emmy-winning telefilm Gia.

Bay Street Theater audiences will remember Ruehl playing Frida Kahlo in Viva la Vida! and her role in Dinner.