Marcia Jean Kurtz

Bio: Bronx-born actress Marcia Jean Kurtz made her film debut in Jerry Schatzberg's 1971 PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (starring Al Pacino). In 1975, she landed a role in another Pacino classic, playing the bank hostage Miriam in the Sidney Lumet-directed DOG DAY AFTERNOON. She has been working with Lumet ever since, appearing in RUNNING ON EMPTY, NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN, FIND… More Bio: Bronx-born actress Marcia Jean Kurtz made her film debut in Jerry Schatzberg's 1971 PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (starring Al Pacino). In 1975, she landed a role in another Pacino classic, playing the bank hostage Miriam in the Sidney Lumet-directed DOG DAY AFTERNOON. She has been working with Lumet ever since, appearing in RUNNING ON EMPTY, NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN, FIND ME GUILTY, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD, and his television show 100 CENTRE STREET. She recently reprised her bank hostage role as another Miriam, who refuses to take her clothes off, even under threat of death by Clive Owen, in Spike Lee's INSIDE MAN. (She has never figured out if Lee gave her this name as homage to Lumet.)

Kurtz has appeared in dozens of other films, including Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, DEATH WISH, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, IN HER SHOES, MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA, THE wRESTLER, and the award-winning, Jay Roach-directed HBO film RECOUNT. Her performance in the LAW & ORDER episode "Indifference", based on the Hedda Nussbaum/Joel Steinberg case, has become something of a classic.

Kurtz has also enjoyed a long and accomplished stage career, winning an Obie for her lead role in Donald Margulies' THE LOMAN FAMILY PICNIC at the Manhattan Theatre Club, and a Obie and Drama Desk Nomination for Martin Sherman's WHEN SHE DANCED at Playwrights Horizons. She has also directed several stage productions, including the HB Playwrights Theatre production of BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, and Evan Handler's solo show TIME ON FIRE at Second Stage. She is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Lincoln Center Director's Lab and was a company member of Peter Brook's C.I.R.T., Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre, and Jerome Robbins' American Laboratory Theatre. She holds a B.S. in Dance from The Juilliard School.