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A large-eyed, slightly baby-faced stage and screen performer McGovern first gained attention as Conrad Jarrett’s (Timothy Hutton) supportive and understanding girlfriend in the Oscar-winning “Ordinary People” (1980). The willowy actress followed with a stunning turn as Evelyn Nesbit in Milos Foreman’s adaptation of the E.L. Doctorow novel “Ragtime” (1981) netting a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. While subsequent projects found her working with a number of top film directors, she failed to find roles that utilized her unique beauty and challenged her range and talent. She appeared as the object of Robert De Niro’s obsession in Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984) and as Kevin Bacon’s pregnant wife in John Hughes’ “She’s Having a Baby” (1988). In 1989, McGovern offered two diverse performances as Mickey Rourke’s sympathetic girlfriend in Walter Hill’s “Johnny Handsome” (1989) and as a rebellious lesbian in Volker Schlondorf’s nonsensical thriller “The Handmaid’s Tale” (1989). McGovern fared better in the little seen romantic comedy-drama “The Favor” (1994) and was featured in the groundbreaking “Wings of Courage” (1995), Jean-Jacques Annaud’s period adventure, the first dramatic film shot in the IMAX 3-D format.

McGovern has been better served in her stage and TV roles, appearing off-Broadway in several productions, notably in Tina Howe’s “Painting Churches” (1989), David Hare’s “A Map of the World” (1990) and Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Her TV debut was opposite Beau Bridges in the adaptation of “The Man in the Brooks Brothers Suit” on the HBO anthology “Women & Men: Stories of Seduction” (1990). She later played an FBI agent in “Broken Trust” (TNT, 1995). McGovern made the jump to series TV headlining the short-lived sitcom “If Not For You” (CBS, 1995). Portraying a woman engaged to a boring yuppie but fighting a growing attraction to a co-worker, she gave a deft and sweetly comic turn. Using her expressive face and throaty voice, she revealed a previously untapped comic sensibility. McGovern married English producer-director Simon Curtis in 1992.

• Born:
  on 07/18/1961 in Evanston, Illinois
• Job Titles:
  Actor

Significant Others

• Companion: Rob Reiner. together in the late 1980s
• Companion: Sean Penn. met on set of “Racing With the Moon”; engaged in 1984; no longer together

Education

• The Juilliard School, New York, New York
• American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, California

Milestones

• 1980 Film debut “Ordinary People”
• 1981 Stage debut, “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”
• 1990 TV debut in “The Man in the Brooks Brothers Suit” segment of HBO series “Women & Men: Stories of Seduction”
• 1994 Appeared in BBC production of “The Changeling”; directed by Simon Curtis
• 1995 Cast as regular in CBS sitcom “If Not for You”
• 1997 Had featured role in “The Wings of the Dove”
• 1999 Appeared in the London stage production of “Three Days of Rain”, alongside Colin Firth and David Morrissey
• 1999 Co-starred in the BBC/A&E adaptation of “The Scarlet Pimpernel”
• 2000 Had featured role in the big screen adaptation of “The House of Mirth”
• 2001 Acted in the London stage production of “Dinner With Friends”
• 2001 Performed in “The Vagina Monologues” in London
• 2003 Co-starred in the feature “Buffalo Soldiers”
• Appeared in off-Broadway productions including “My Sister in This House”, “Painting Churches” and “A Map of the World”