Cynthia Nixon Beats Breast Cancer
Here's one happily ending Sex and the City sequel.
Cynthia Nixon has revealed she was diagnosed with breast cancer a year and a half ago but opted not to announce her diagnosis before now to keep her private battle out of the public forum.
"I didn't really want to make it public while I was going through it," she said on Good Morning America Tuesday. "I didn't want paparazzi at the hospital, that kind of thing."
Now cancer free, Nixon said she was first diagnosed during her 2006 starring run in the Broadway play The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
"I felt scared," she said. "I thought, 'Oh, I don't want this to be happening.' I was very cognizant of if it's going to happen, this is the best way for it to happen, that it's found so early and we can just get right on it."
The diagnosis wasn't a complete shock for Nixon, who had dealt firsthand with cancer before. Her mother, Ann, was diagnosed and successfully beat the disease when the actress was 12 years old.
"I always sort of thought, I'm probably going to get breast cancer," she said. "There's a really good chance."
The 42-year-old Emmy and Tony winner said she found out about her disease after a routine mammogram revealed a "very small" spot of cancer that needed to be removed.
The consummate professional scheduled her surgery for a Sunday to avoid missing a single performance of her stage show. Following the operation, she underwent six and a half weeks of daily radiation treatment.
While Nixon dealt with the health scare in an extremely practical, matter-of-fact way, she said those close to her had various ways of coping with the news.
"My girlfriend was very scared," she said of her partner of four years, Christine Marinoni. "She was in a panic. She was just trying to calm herself down any way she could."
Nixon and Marinoni, both of whom are referred to by Nixon's two children as "mom," also broke the news to the kids together, who handled it remarkably well.
Costar Kristin Davis, on the other hand, failed to maintain her cool.
While the Sex and the City series had already wrapped, and the Sex and the City movie not yet entered into production, Nixon said she called her close pal to inform her of the diagnosis. Davis' loving, if not entirely logical, response: to jump up in her chair and refuse to retreat until she was assured by Nixon that all would be well.
As for the Sex and the City storyline in which Kim Cattrall's character, Samantha Jones, was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, Nixon says she now believes the series handled the storyline "beautifully."
"Leave it to Samantha to make a party out of cancer."
Nixon has since been named the new spokesperson for Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. As an ambassador for the foundation, the world's largest breast cancer advocacy organization, she will appear in a series of TV and radio public service announcements to educate people on the disease.
TomKat’s Broadway Date Night
TomKat’s Broadway Date Night
Continuing to make the most of their trip to New York City, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had an eventful Saturday night in the Big Apple.
Striding around in a killer pair of Christian Louboutin heels, Katie, along with her Top Gun hubby, attended the Broadway play “The Country Girl” at the Bernard B Jacobs Theatre. The Hollywood supercouple also grabbed a bite to eat with Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, Jessica.
Upon returning back to their hotel, Katie rested a supportive hand on her husband’s back as he signed autographs for fans.
A source on the scene tells: “TomKat then listened intently to a hotel guest who shared a personal tragedy with the couple. As they finally entered their hotel having promised to do what they could to help the guest, even the doorman wanted the pair to stop for a chat before they could retire for the night!”
Lance Armstrong: I’m Not Dating Ashley
Lance Armstrong: I’m Not Dating Ashley
Amid all the speculation and scandal surrounding the rumored romance between Lance Armstrong and Ashley Olsen, the Tour De France champ is crying foul.
He told press, “Ashley Olsen and I are strictly friends. We have hung out amongst other friends, and she strikes me as a nice, smart lady.”
Unfortunately for Lance, his actions point us in a different direction. After all, he was seen checking into the SoHo House in NYC the same night as Olsen, and then had dinner with her at Waverly Hill.
The pair also took in the Broadway play Young Frankenstein together.
Armstrong’s ex, Sheryl Crow was quoted as saying, “That’s pathetic, Ashley’s a kid,” as she rolled her eyes by Life & Style. But the “All I Wanna Do” singer says it’s all false.
On her blog, she wrote, “Lance and I are friends. I have a lot of respect for him and what he does in the world of cancer. What he does in his personal life . . . is none of my business. Nor would I ever comment on it.”
We’ll keep you posted on the developments of the relationship between Lance and Ashley.
Felicity Huffman Biography
Often lauded for her stage work, Felicity Huffman won a new round of fans as the smart, competent producer Dana Whitaker on the ABC series “Sports Night” (1998-2000). Although born in Westchester County, New York, she was raised in Colorado. Returning east to attend NYU, Huffman joined the Atlantic Theater Company, co-founded by David Mamet and William H Macy. Mamet offered the actress her first screen role, a bit part in “Things Change” (1988), and she was also tapped as Madonna’s understudy and successor in Mamet’s Broadway play “Speed-the-Plow” (also 1988).
Over the course of the next ten years, Huffman alternated between acclaimed stage roles (most often with the Atlantic Theater Company) and TV roles. She made her small screen debut as a series regular portraying the government security officer who aids an elderly man who seems to be growing younger in “Stephen King’s ‘Golden Years’” (CBS, 1991). Guest roles on series like “Law & Order” and “The X-Files” followed. Huffman was tapped to play Edward Asner’s daughter in the ABC sitcom “Thunder Alley” but was replaced after the pilot. She bounced back from that disappointment with a stage success in Mamet’s “The Cryptogram” (1995) and in a supporting turn in the playwright’s film “The Spanish Prisoner” (1998) before landing “Sports Night,” the Aaron Sorkin-penned sit-com that made her a well-known name.
Her real-life husband Macy, whom she married in 1997, joined the series in its second season, sparking an on-screen partnership that would endure through many projects: they also co-starred in the cable telepic “A Case of Murder” (1999), a comedy-mystery Macy adapted from the Donald Westlake novel; they both appeared in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia” (1999); she had an uncredited turn in Macy’s award-winning TNT telepic “Door To Door,” which he also co-wrote; they reunited in the Showtime mini-series “Out of Order” (2003); and co-starred in the legal potboiler telepic “Reversible Errors” (2004).
After “Sports Night” and away from Macy, Huffman also kept busy solo on the small screen with parts in the telepics “The Heart Department” (2001), “Snap Decision” (2001) and, most impressively, in director John Frankenheimer’s acclaimed HBO drama “The Path to War” (2002), playing First Lady “Lady Bird†Johnson. She also scored a pair of high-profile recurring roles, playing Julia Wilcox, Frasier Crane’s caustic co-worker and eventual love interest on the hit sit-com “Frasier” from 2003-2004, and Charlotte Ellis in the legal drama “The D.A.” After a stint on the big screen as Kate Hudson’s late older sister in the comedy “Raising Helen” (2004), Huffman returned to series drama in the offbeat serial drama “Desperate Housewives” (ABC, 2004 - ), playing Lynette Scavo, a former corporate ladder-climber turned stay-at-home mom who struggles with her insecurities when she can’t control her wild children and gets little support from her husband. The show’s mega-popularity provided Huffman’s career with fresh energy–she scored an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the series’ debut season, as well as a 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series–though she continued to remain the most private and low-profile of her co-stars.
Later that same year Huffman had an astonishing turn on the big screen in the indie “Transamerica” (2005) playing a pre-operative transsexual who, on the brink of her transforming surgery, discovered that in her youth she had fathered a son, who contacts her as a troubled teen hustler on the run. Despite the gender-bending premise, the film followed a traditional road movie dynamic, and Huffman won widespread praise for her nearly unrecognizable, fully formed performance. All the attention she received resulted in a Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, which almost guaranteed the actress a nomination from the Academy Awards. And she was indeed one of the nominees for Best Actress in a Leading Role when they were announced the morning of January 31, 2006.
- Born:
on 12/09/1962 in Westchester County, New York - Job Titles:
Actor
Family
- Brother: Moore Huffman. older
- Daughter: Georgia Grace Macy. born March 14, 2002; father is William H. Macy
- Daughter: Sophia Macy. born on August 1, 2000
- Mother: Grace Huffman.
Significant Others
- Husband: William H Macy. met through mutual association with the Atlantic Theater Company; married on September 6, 1997
Education
- New York University, New York City, theatre
- Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, England
- American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York City
- Circle in the Square Professional Theatre School, New York City
Milestones
- 1988 Film acting debut in bit part in “Things Changes”, directed by David Mamet
- 1988 Understudied and eventually replaced Madonna in Mamet’s Broadway play “Speed-the-Plow”
- 1990 Had featured role in “Reversal of Fortune”
- 1991 TV series debut as government security chief Terry Spann in “Stephen King’s ‘Golden Years’” (CBS)
- 1992 TV-movie acting debut in the USA Network’s “Quicksand: No Escape”
- 1993 Received strong notices for her lead performance as a woman converting to Judaism who recalls childhood sexual abuse in the Old Globe (San Diego) production of “Out of Purgatory”
- 1994 Appeared in the pilot episode of the ABC sitcom “Thunder Alley” as Ed Asner’s daughter; replaced in the series by Diane Venora
- 1995 Acted onstage in Mamet’s “The Cryptogram”
- 1995 Directed by Mamet in the Atlantic Theater Company production of J.B. Priestley’s “Dangerous Corner”
- 1996 Was featured in the Showtime series “Bedtime”
- 1997 Directed by future husband William H Macy in “The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite” at the Atlantic Theater Company
- 1998 Portrayed TV producer Dana Whitaker in the ABC series “Sports Night”
- 1998 Co-starred in “The Spanish Prisoner”, written and directed by Mamet
- 1999 Acted opposite husband William H Macy (who also co-wrote the teleplay) in the TNT original “A Slight Case of Murder”
- 1999 Played small role in “Magnolia” as a TV game show coordinator; husband had more substantial role in the film
- 2001 Cast opposite Tony Shalhoub in the CBS pilot “Heart Department”
- 2001 Portrayed a photographer who is charged with child pornography when she takes pictures of her friend’s children in the Lifetime movie “Snap Decision”
- 2002 Portrayed Lady Bird Johnson in the made for TV movie “Path to War”
- 2003 Guest starred as Frasier’s Love interest on the NBC comedy “Frasier”
- 2003 Starred opposite Eric Stoltz in the Showtime series “Out of Order”
- 2004 Cast as Lynette Scavo, the ex-career woman and mother of four unmanageable kids in the ABC drama “Desperate Housewives”; received Golden Globe (2004, 2005) and SAG (2006) nominations for Best Actress in a Comedy Series
- 2004 Starred in the CBS miniseries opposite her real life husband William H. Macy in Scott Turow’s crime thriller “Reversible Errors,” which also stars Tom Selleck and Monica Potter
- 2005 Played a transsexual woman who discovers that she fathered a child in her former life as a man in the indie drama “Transamerica”; earned Oscar and SAG nominations for Best Actress
- Became a member of the Atlantic Theater Company, co-founded by David Mamet and William H Macy
- Raised in Colorado
- Will co-star with Lindsay Lohan and Jane Fonda in “Georgia Rule”