Calista Flockhart Biography:

A long time Hollywood favorite, Calista Flockhart appeared in many Off-Broadway plays such as "All for One", "Sophistry" and "Wrong Turn at Lungfish" before succeeding on Broadway in the role of Laura in "The Glass Menagerie". 

Director Mike Nichols gave the actress her breakthrough movie role as the daughter of a politician engaged to the son of a gay man in "The Birdcage" with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane (1996). Her somewhat ordinary looks and lively expression was frequently a remedy to the high powered actions of stars Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane and Dianne Wiest.

The daughter of a food company executive, she led a wandering upbringing, living in Iowa, Minnesota and New York before the family finally settled down in New Jersey. After finishing school at Rutgers University, she moved to New York City to start a career.

She accepted a range of film and television jobs, and her feature debut was in the small role of a college student in Robert Redford's "Quiz Show" (1994). In 1997, the movie "Drunks" gave her the chance to shine but she was overshadowed by her better known co-stars like Faye Dunaway, Dianne Wiest and Parker Posey. In "Milk and Money" (1996), she played the dull girlfriend of the main character and added a feeling of believability to her blue collar worker role who becomes the focus of a teenage boys romantic feeling in "Telling Lies in America" with Kevin Bacon and Brad Renfro (1997).

Although she had many television projects to her credit, it was as the main character in the David E Kelley created "Ally McBeal" playing along side up-and-comers Lucy Liu and Hayden Panettiere (1997-2002) which shot her to celebrity stardom. As the a Boston lawyer prone to fantasies and dealing with being a single working woman, she gave a fantastic depiction that bordered between comedy and tragedy. Her character, who repeatedly complained about the state of her sexual and romantic life, touched a nerve with audiences. Everything from her short skirts to her continual search for the right mate was food for the tabloid media. In real life, there was rumor about her love life and, more controversially, her weight. A tiny, lean woman, the actress was rumored to be suffering from either an eating disorder or a drug problem. No amount of public relations could stop the rumors, not even her appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman" where she announced that those disapproving of her size could "kiss my skinny, white ass." There were also skits on Saturday Night Live that parodied her slim build and tiny body frame.

The job offers rolled in, on both the small and large screens, most notably "Jane Doe" starring alongside Teri Hatcher (1996). In her first lead role, she gave a convincing performance as a drug addict who falls for a shy writer. She then played the role of Helena in Michael Hoffman's screen version of "William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1999), giving a great performance. Along with Christian Bale, Anna Friel, Michelle Pfeiffer and Dominic Westas Lysander, she balanced out the cast of young lovers at the heart of the performance and further illustrated her flexibility skillfully managing both the comedy and the dialog.

The actress next took a dramatic role for her next project, “Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her” with Glenn Close and Cameron Diaz (2001), a film following three different stories about various women in the middle of major life problems. She played an amazingly accurate tarot card reader whose outlook feeds her cancer stricken lover (Valeria Golino), while finding relief in telling the warm memories of their relationship. Returning to comedy roots, she joined a well-rounded cast that included Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin and Toni Collette in “The Last Shot” (2004), a true story take-off about an FBI agent (Baldwin) who sets up an complex sting operation to stop legendary mafia boss John Gotti by enlisting a naive director (Broderick) to direct a movie that will never get made. 

Returning to regular television work for the first time in four years, she starred in the soap drama, “Brothers and Sisters” (2006- ), a household story about five brothers and sisters who take over the family’s profitable produce business after the sudden death of their father (Tom Skerritt). She played a liberal radio talk show host who comes back to her Los Angeles roots to start a television talk show but must deal with her dysfunctional family, especially her separated mother played by Sally Field, while trying to run the family business. After the initial pilot was filmed in 2006, the network thought the project needed sweeping changes and recast half of the cast, Betty Buckley originally played Flockhart’s mother, and fired executive producer Marti Noxon. 

The new and improved “Brothers & Sisters” began in the fall of 2006 with a lead-in from the popular “Desperate Housewives” riding the popularity of Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman and Eva Longoria Parker (2004- ) and gained good viewers and ratings. Even with the over the top and soap opera style scripts and generally slow story plots, Calista showed a lot of dramatic talent, a welcome change to her “Ally McBeal” antics.