Plimpton was born in New York City. She is the daughter of actors Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton. Her parents met while performing in the original Broadway run of Hair.[7] Her paternal grandfather was actor John Carradine.[8][9] She is an eighth cousin once removed of writer and editor George Plimpton.[10][11][12] She is also related to cartoonist Bill Plympton, despite the different spelling.[13] She attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.[14] Her first stage appearance was when her mother brought her on stage in costume for the curtain call of the short-lived Broadway play The Leaf People then another play in The Ass and the Heart.[15]
Career
1980s
Plimpton began her career as a model, securing an early 1980s campaign for Calvin Klein, making an impression as a sophisticated but tomboyish little girl.[16] She made her feature film debut in 1981 with a small role in the film Rollover.[17] In 1984, she appeared in the Deep South drama The River Rat opposite Tommy Lee Jones, as his "hoydenish daughter".[18] Her breakthrough performance was as Stef Steinbrenner in the 1985 film The Goonies.[16][19][20] She also appeared that year in the sitcom Family Ties. This began Plimpton being cast in the role of a rebellious tomboy,[16] beginning with her performance as the Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory)'s daughter in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast, starring Harrison Ford.[16] The critically praised but commercially unsuccessful 1987 film Shy People[21] was followed by a performance in the 1988 ensemble comedy Stars and Bars.[20][22] This was released shortly before Running on Empty, an Oscar-nominated film,[23] in which Plimpton appeared opposite River Phoenix, her boyfriend, both 17–18 years of age, like their characters. For this role, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award.
In her late teenaged years, Plimpton was also active in theater, performing in regional theater in Seattle, Washington, where her mother was living at the time.[24] She also began a career making small independent film appearances with supporting roles in big-budget films. She appeared in the 1988 Woody Allen film Another Woman.[25] She starred as a cancer patient in the German film Zwei Frauen (1990) (released in America as Silence Like Glass).[26] The film was nominated for a German Film Award as Best Fiction Film.[citation needed] Plimpton shaved her head to play a cancer patient in Zwei Frauen.[27] She played the independent teenage daughter of Dianne Wiest's character in Parenthood.[28]Parenthood grossed over $126 million[29] and received two Oscar nominations,[30] one of her most successful movie appearances since The Goonies.
1990s
Plimpton in 1996
Plimpton appeared in the Robert De Niro-Jane Fonda 1990 romantic drama Stanley & Iris in a supporting role.[31] She also appeared in the 1991 TV movie A Woman At War in the lead role as Helene Moskiewicz.[32] Plimpton played the starring role of Samantha in the film Samantha (1991).[33] She appeared as an activist in the independent film Inside Monkey Zetterland released in 1993.[34] She appeared in the television film Daybreak (1993, HBO).[35][36] She appeared in the Showtime television film Chantilly Lace.[37] She had a featured role in the film Josh and S.A.M. (1993) as a runaway who takes care of the two boys.[38][39] She played the lead in The Beans of Egypt, Maine, based on the Carolyn Chute novel.[40] Plimpton also appeared as herself in the independent film by Eric Schaeffer My Life's in Turnaround (1993), a movie about filmmakers trying to make a movie.[41] She appeared as a close friend of radical feminist Valerie Solanas in the film I Shot Andy Warhol (1996).[42]
In 1997, the Showtime Network cast Plimpton as the female lead in a television film, The Defenders: Payback. Two more episodes (The Defenders: Choice of Evils and The Defenders: Taking the First) were aired in 1998. This show was a retooling of the classic television show by the same name, and the characters were descendants of Lawrence Preston, a role reprised by actor E.G. Marshall. Plimpton played the granddaughter, M.J. Preston.[43][44] The intent was to spin the program off as a series, but Marshall died in 1998. The decision was made to not continue production due to Marshall's death.[45] Plimpton became involved with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, appearing in Hedda Gabler (2001) among others.[46] She appeared in the John Waters film Pecker in 1998. The film received mixed reviews—for example, the SF Gate reviewer wrote, "...Waters' patented brand of off-color fun is watered down", but wrote that Plimpton's work was "solid".[47] The 1999 film 200 Cigarettes received generally negative reviews, but the AllMovie reviewer wrote of Plimpton: "...woefully underappreciated Martha Plimpton gets laughs as a bundle of neuroses who grows more and more stressed out as people fail to appear for her party..."[48] In 1999, Plimpton had a recurring role in the sixth season of the NBC medical drama ER as Meg Corwyn.
She co-founded a production company, Everything is Horrible, which has produced short films for the Internet. Plimpton received her second nomination for a Tony Award in 2008, Best Performance by a Featured Actress In a Play, for her work in Top Girls at the Biltmore Theater.[56] In November 2008, she earned a positive review from Ben Brantley in The New York Times for her role as Gladys Bumps in the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Pal Joey on Broadway: "...the ever-daring Ms. Plimpton exudes a been-there, frowzy sensuality that summons a host of hard-bitten dames from 1930s movie melodramas. Leading the nightclub act 'That Terrific Rainbow,' she has the period style down pat and a more than passable voice."[57] She received her third consecutive Tony nomination, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Plimpton appeared in the 2008 Entertainment Weekly photo issue spread as one of "The Hardest Working Actors In Showbiz". Plimpton said in the write-up, "I went to jury duty the other day, and somebody said, 'You always play drug addicts!' I've played a few on TV, and I imagine because the shows get replayed, it seems like more. But yeah, people tend to see me as this pregnant teenage heroin addict."[58] In 2008, Plimpton performed a duet with singer Lucy Wainwright Roche on Roche's EP 8 More, singing the Bruce Springsteen song "Hungry Heart". The two had performed the song in 2008 at Joe's Pub and later in 2008 at the Zipper Factory.[59] In 2009, she was profiled by The New York Times for their "A Night Out With..." series, in which Plimpton hosted an evening of poker at The Players.[60]
In 1985, Plimpton met actor River Phoenix. They did not initially get along well, but began a romantic relationship in February 1986 while co-starring in Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast.[84] They went on to co-star in the Sidney Lumet film Running on Empty. Their relationship ended in June 1989 due to Phoenix's substance abuse, but they remained close friends until his death in 1993. Plimpton later stated, "When we split up, a lot of it was that I had learned that screaming, fighting, and begging wasn't going to change him. He had to change himself, and he didn't want to yet."[85]
Plimpton resides part-time in London, her visa allowing her to stay until 2024.[86]
Political campaigns
Plimpton is an abortion-rights campaigner who has lobbied Congress on behalf of Planned Parenthood and is on the board of directors of the women's-rights organization "A Is For"; according to the organization's website, Plimpton has been politically active in abortion rights since her teenage years and speaks at campuses and rallies.[87] In 2014, Plimpton wrote a lengthy article decrying both U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and McCullen v. Coakley and revealing in part that she herself has had an abortion more than once.[88] She wrote that her purpose was "A) to contribute to the dismantling of an oppressive, artificial and unfair shaming of women who seek abortion care, B) make clear just how normal, common, and healthy a decision it is for the women who make it, and C) to encourage women who are part of this one third to be unashamed and come out of the abortion closet."[88] In September 2017, Plimpton created controversy when she again said she had multiple abortions and said one she received at Planned Parenthood in Seattle was her "best one".[89]
^Enos, Alice Plimpton. Supplement to a Genealogy of the Family of Plimpton Or Plympton in America.
^Plympton, Bill. "October 16 Scrapbook | Bill Plympton Studio". www.plymptoons.com. Archived from the original on July 15, 2011. Retrieved October 2, 2010. "But through my beautiful and talented cousin, Martha Plimpton (the star of Broadway), David, her uncle, was kind enough to do a starring voice in my wonderful film Hair High."
^Ryzik, Melena. "So Odd, but Lately in Classic Fashion", The New York Times, November 25, 2007. Retrieved November 25, 2007. "On a break from rehearsals for 'Cymbeline' at Lincoln Center, Martha Plimpton dashed outside for a cigarette and immediately ran into a classmate from her alma mater, the nearby Professional Children’s School."
^Lansden, Pamela (February 6, 1989). "Take One". People.com. People Magazine. Retrieved September 15, 2017. Plimpton, it turns out, shaved her head last fall for her role as a cancer victim in the movie Silence Like Glass, due this summer, with Jami Gertz and Rip Torn.
^Bleiler, David. [1]TLA Film and Video Guide 2000–2001: The Discerning Film Lover's Guide, books.google.com, 2013, St. Martin's Griffin, ISBN1466859407
^Erickson, Hal. [2]Encyclopedia of Television Law Shows: Factual and Fictional Series About Judges, Lawyers and the Courtroom, 1948–2008, books.google.com, McFarland, 2009, ISBN0786454520, p.85
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