Bio
Swoosie Kurtz is an American actress best known for her starring role as Alexandra 'Alex' Reed Halsey Barker in the television drama series Sisters, from 1991-1996.
Kurtz was seen in the Showtime television series Nurse Jackie. Her extensive television work includes the series Pushing Daisies, Huff, Desperate Housewives, Heroes, Law & Order: SVU, Lost, ER, Sisters, Love, Sidney and the television movies And The Band Played On and Texas Cheerleading Murdering Mom.
Her feature film credits include Citizen Ruth, Liar, Liar, Dangerous Liaisons, Cruel Intentions, The Rules of Attraction, Bubble Boy, Reality Bites, The World According to Garp, Against All Odds and An Englishman in New York, which premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.
Kurtz has won two Tony Awards for her performances in The House of Blue Leaves and Fifth of July, and has received Tony nominations for Heartbreak House, Frozen, and Tartuffe.
Her other theatre credits include Imaginary Friends, The Mineola Twins, The Vagina Monologues, Six Degrees of Separation, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, A History of the American Film and Uncommon Women & Others, which earned her an Obie Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award.
Kurtz grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Her father, an Olympic diving champion and the most decorated Air Force pilot of World War II, named her after The Swoose, the B-17 plane he flew in the war.
Currently living in Los Angeles, Kurtz enjoys yoga and refurbishing her historic home, which was built in 1951 by architect Harwell Hamilton Harris, a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright.