Robin Wright Penn
Robin Wright Penn, September 2006
Born	Robin Gayle Wright April 8, 1966 (1966-04-08) (age 42) Dallas, Texas, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Dane Witherspoon (1986–1988) Sean Penn (1996– present)

Robin Gayle Wright Penn (born April 8, 1966) is an American film actress.

Biography

Early life

Penn was born Robin Gayle Wright in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of Gayle (née Gaston), an Independent Executive National Sales Director for Mary Kay cosmetics, and Fred Wright, a pharmaceutical executive.¹ She was raised in San Diego, California.

Career

She was listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1986" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 38. [1986]. Wright first became famous on television, playing Kelly Capwell on the soap opera Santa Barbara, which earned her 3 Daytime Emmy nominations. She shot to stardom after her roles as Buttercup in The Princess Bride and Jenny Curran in Forrest Gump, the latter role garnering her Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Supporting Actress (but not the Academy Award nomination that many believe she deserved). Wright was offered the role of Maid Marian in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but turned it down because she was pregnant. She had to back out of the role of Abby McDeere in The Firm (1993), with Tom Cruise, upon discovering that she was pregnant with her second child (son Hopper Penn). The role eventually went to Jeanne Tripplehorn.

In 1996, she married Sean Penn and changed her name to Robin Wright Penn. She went on to co-star with her husband in the 1997 film She's So Lovely, for which she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. One of her most recent successes was a supporting role in the TV movie Empire Falls as Grace Roby, mother of Ed Harris's character Miles Roby. Penn received her third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for this role.

Personal life

Wright became involved with actor Sean Penn in about 1989 following his divorce from Madonna, marrying on 27 April 1996. Their daughter Dylan Frances Penn was born on 13 April 1991, and son Hopper Jack Penn was born on 6 August 1993. Currently they live in Ross, California.

On December 27, 2007, the couple's representative announced that the Penns were to divorce,² after a supposed infidelity of the actor with actress Sienna Miller. However, on April 09, 2008, it was announced that the couple had filed a petition to dismiss the divorce.³ Wright-Penn was previously married to actor Dane Witherspoon from 1986 to 1988.⁴⁵ She is the national campaign spokesperson for the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America.

Filmography

Features:

• Hollywood Vice Squad (1986)
• The Princess Bride (1987)
• Denial (1990)
• State of Grace (1990)
• The Playboys (1992)
• Toys (1992)
• Forrest Gump (1994)
• The Crossing Guard (1995)
• Moll Flanders (1996)
• Loved (1997)
• She's So Lovely (1997)
• Hurlyburly (1998)
• Message in a Bottle (1999)
• How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog (2000)
• Unbreakable (2000)
• The Pledge (2001)
• The Last Castle (2001)
• Searching for Debra Winger (2002) (documentary)
• White Oleander (2002)
• The Singing Detective (2003)
• Virgin (2003)
• A Home at the End of the World (2004)
• Nine Lives (2005)
• Sorry, Haters (2005)
• Breaking and Entering (2006)
• Hounddog (2007)
• Beowulf (2007) ("motion capture" enhanced performance)
• What Just Happened (2008)

Upcoming:

• State of Play (2009)
• New York, I Love You (2009)
• The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)
• A Christmas Carol (2009)

Short Subjects:

• Max (2005)
• Room 10 (2006)

References

External links

• Robin Wright Penn at the Internet Movie Database