Biography
Julianna Margulies won multiple Emmy awards and a legion of fans for her portrayal of two strong, complex women on television series: head nurse Carol Hathaway on "ER" (NBC 1994-2009) and lawyer Alicia Florrick on "The Good Wife" (CBS, 2009-2016). Born Julianna Luisa Margulies on June 8, 1966 in Spring Valley, New York, she was one of three daughters by advertising executive Paul Margulies and his wife, ballet instructor Francesca Goldberg. She spent much of her childhood abroad, living in England, France and Israel before settling in New York City; she attended High Mowing School in New Hampshire before studying art history at Sarah Lawrence College. While there, she appeared in several school productions, and decided to make acting her chosen profession after graduation. Her screen debut came opposite action star Steven Seagal in John Flynn's 1991 action-crime thriller "Out for Justice," and was soon followed by guest roles on NBC series like "Law & Order" (1990-2010) and "Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993-96). In 1994, she booked what was intended as a one-time appearance on "ER," playing Carol Hathaway, an emergency room nurse who attempted suicide over her failed relationship with a pediatrician, played by series regular George Clooney. But positive response to her performance by focus groups prompted the show's producers to make Hathaway one of the show's main characters. She soon blossomed into one of the show's moral anchors as well as one of its most complicated: Hathaway endured several failed relationships, survived a hostage situation, overcame professional setbacks and eventually raised two twin daughters on her own before Clooney's Doug Ross, repentant after a decade of hard living, reunited with her in the show's final season. Marguiles' performance earned six Emmy nominations, including a win in 1995, and four Golden Globe nominations, and led to supporting roles in several independent features, including Bruce Beresford's "Paradise Road" (1997) and Richard Linklater's "The Newton Boys" (1998). A desire for more substantive work in films and on stage led to her departure from "ER" in 2000, but after winning a Emmy nomination as the sorceress Morgan Le Fay in Uli Edel's TV miniseries take on "The Mists of Avalon" (TNT, 2001), Marguiles' film efforts were largely relegated to underperforming features like "The Man from Elysian Fields" (2001) and "Ghost Ship" (2004). By 2006, she had returned to television, where she enjoyed a four-episode run as a drug-addicted real estate agent on "The Sopranos" (HBO, 1997-2007) and starred in the legal drama "Canterbury's Law" (Fox, 2008). The series lasted just six episodes, but she rebounded in 2009 with "The Good Wife," a legal drama about the wife of a Chicago politician who takes a job at a law firm after her husband is caught in a scandal. Her performance as Alicia Florrick - whose character arced from wounded spouse to strong independent woman and finally, a political aspirant whose ambitions are undone by her own scandal - again resonated with viewers and critics alike, and earned her two Emmys, three Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe before the series came to a close in 2016. Margulies again made appearances in a handful of independent films before returning to series work, first as a vindictive fashionista in the short-lived AMC series "Dietland" (2018) and later, as a doctor battling a possible Ebola outbreak in the National Geographic miniseries "The Hot Zone."
