Early life

Burton was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the daughter of producer Sybil Burton (née Williams; 1929-2013) and actor Richard Burton (1925-1984). She was thus the stepdaughter of Elizabeth Taylor and of Sybil's second husband Jordan Christopher, both actors. Burton earned a bachelor's degree in Russian Studies and European History from Brown University in 1979, where she was on the board of Production Workshop, one of the university's student theater groups, and a master's degree from Yale School of Drama in 1982. Brown awarded Burton an honorary doctorate in 2007.

Career

Stage work

Burton's first notable role on Broadway was in a 1982 production of the Noël Coward play Present Laughter directed by George C. Scott. The following year, she appeared in the Broadway production of Doonesbury, playing J.J. Several key roles followed, including roles in Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter and Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane.

In 2002, she received Tony Award nominations in separate performance categories: Best Actress in a Play, for her portrayal of the title role in Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, and Best Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayals of Pinhead/Mrs. Kendal in the revival of The Elephant Man. As of January 2016, she is one of only five actors, including Amanda Plummer, Dana Ivey, Jan Maxwell and Mark Rylance, to be nominated for Tony awards in two different categories in the same year.

In 2006, Burton starred in the Off-Broadway production of The Water's Edge opposite Tony Goldwyn. That year, she again received a Tony nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her role in W. Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife. In 2007, she played Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard at Boston's Huntington Theatre. On December 21, 2007, she joined the cast of the Broadway musical Spring Awakening in the role of the Adult Women when she replaced actress Christine Estabrook. Kristine Nielsen replaced her on March 2, 2008 for a short stint until Estabrook reassumed the role. During the summer of 2010, Burton portrayed actress Katharine Cornell in A.R. Gurney's The Grand Manner at Lincoln Center in New York.

Film and television

Burton's first screen appearance was in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days, starring her father, with whom she later appeared as Alice opposite his White Knight in the 1983 Great Performances broadcast of Alice in Wonderland, and in the 1984 CBS miniseries Ellis Island. Other films include Big Trouble in Little China, The First Wives Club, Life with Mikey, and The Ice Storm. Burton has said of these roles that she usually plays "the sweet wife, or the sweet dead wife."

Burton has been perhaps most prolific in her work on television. She made many television appearances in the late 1980s and 1990s on such episodic shows as Spenser: For Hire, All My Children, and Brooklyn Bridge. About playing the mother, in her late thirties, of David Schwimmer's character in the short-lived 1994 FOX sitcom, Monty, she said, "you don't really start playing moms in Hollywood until you're in your 40s, and usually the kids are almost your age! When I played Schwimmer's mother, I was 37 and he was, I think, 28. . . that happens a lot in TV and film; you really do end up being close in age to your child, which is nonsensical." In 1996, Burton won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a mother dying of breast cancer in the ABC Afterschool Special, 'Notes For My Daughter'. More recently, she made guest appearances as recurring characters on Law & Order, The Practice, The West Wing, Judging Amy and Medium. She also appeared on the HBO miniseries Empire Falls.

Her recent recurring television roles have involved subplots concerning Alzheimer's disease. On FX network's Rescue Me, she played the role of Rose, a friend and possible romantic interest to Chief Jerry Reilly. Reilly, whose wife is in a facility suffering from Alzheimer's, hires Rose, a caregiver for her husband who was also a victim, to provide assistance and emotional support. In perhaps her most visible and well-known role to date as the mother of Dr. Meredith Grey (the titular character on the well-known ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy), Burton played Dr. Ellis Grey, the former trailblazing surgeon, who dies of Alzheimer's. In 2008, the New York City Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association singled her out for her compelling performances in both shows. In 2006 and 2007, Burton received Emmy nominations for her Grey's Anatomy role. In 2011, Burton appeared as a veteran monster hunter in the opening episodes of the NBC supernatural drama Grimm. From 2012 until 2014, she played extreme right-wing Vice President Sally Langston, a secondary antagonist, in the ABC hit show Scandal, for which she again received an Emmy nomination. In 2015 it was reported that Burton was cast in a leading role in the U.S. remake of the French-language film Martyrs, which opened theatrically in January 2016.

Other work

Burton has narrated numerous audiobooks, including works by: Patricia Cornwell, Lisa Scottoline, Iris Johansen, and Dean Koontz.

Personal life

In 1985, Burton married Michael Ritchie, Artistic Director of the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles and one of the producers of the Broadway musicals The Drowsy Chaperone and Curtains. They had met in 1982, while Ritchie was stage manager of a revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City in which Burton was playing the character Daphne. They have two children, a son Morgan Ivor (born May 14, 1988), who is an actor, and a daughter Charlotte Frances (born January 19, 1989).

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1969	Anne of the Thousand Days	Serving Maid	Uncredited
1984	Ellis Island	Vanessa Ogden	Television film
1986	Big Trouble in Little China	Margo Litzenberger
1987	Uncle Tom's Cabin	Ophelia	Television film
1993	Life with Mikey	Mrs. Burns
1993	Love Matters	Deborah	Television film
1996	August	Helen Blathwaite
1996	First Wives Club, TheThe First Wives Club	Woman in Bed
1996	Mistrial	Katherine Donohue	Television film
1997	Ice Storm, TheThe Ice Storm	Dorothy Franklin
1997	Ellen Foster	Abigail Montford	Television film
1998	Celebrity	Cheryl
2000	Opportunists, TheThe Opportunists	Rest Home Sister
2002	Unfaithful	Tracy
2002	Swimfan	Carla Cronin
2002	Obsessed	Sara Miller	Television film
2003	Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, TheThe Diary of Ellen Rimbauer	Connie Posey	Television film
2003	Paper Mache Chase, TheThe Paper Mache Chase	Martha	Short film
2005	Stay	Mrs. Letham
2005	Empire Falls	Cindy Whiting	Television film
2006	Sherrybaby	Marcia Swanson
2007	Lovely by Surprise	Helen
2008	What Just Happened	Dr. Randall
2008	Quid Pro Quo	Merilee
2008	Max Payne	Nicole Horne
2009	Kings of Appletown, TheThe Kings of Appletown	Aunt Birdy
2009	Spooner	Alice Spooner
2010	Remember Me	Janine
2010	Consent	Susan
2010	127 Hours	Aron's Mom
2011	Puncture	Senator O'Reilly
2012	Liberal Arts	Susan
2012	2 Days in New York	Bella
2012	Mariachi Gringo	Anne
2013	Adam Shaw	Dr. Wilson
2014	Barefoot	Mrs. Wheeler
2014	Shiva and May	Martha
2015	Martyrs	Unknown

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Great Performances	Alice	Episode: "Alice in Wonderland"
1985	Evergreen	Agatha Bradford	Episode: "1.2"
1987-1988	Spenser: For Hire	Randy Lofficier	2 episodes
1988	American Playhouse	Agnes Bolton O'Neill	Episode: "Journey Into Genius"
1992	Law & Order	Sister Bettina	Episode: "Sisters of Mercy"
1992	Home Fires	Anne Kramer	6 episodes
1993	Brooklyn Bridge	Susan Lowenberg Jones	Episode: "Keeping Up with the Joneses"
1994	Monty	Fran Richardson	13 episodes
1994	All My Children	Dr. Renee Peters	Unknown episodes
1995	ABC Afterschool Special	Brenda Gardner	Episode: "Notes for My Daughter" Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special
1997-2004	Practice, TheThe Practice	A.D.A. Susan Alexander	9 episodes
2001-2009	Law & Order	Erica Gardner	4 episodes
2001	100 Centre Street	Sheila Byrne	Episode: "My Brother's Keeper"
2001	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	Stephanie Uffland	Episode: "The Pardoner's Tale"
2004	West Wing, TheThe West Wing	Sarah Brainerd	Episode: "Slow News Day"
2005	Judging Amy	Dr. Sheri Jordan	Episode: "Silent Era"
2005	American Masters	Voice of Novels	Episode: "Ernest Hemingway: Rivers to the Sea"
2005	Numb3rs	Anthropologist	Episode: "Bones of Contention"
2005-2006	Rescue Me	Rose	6 episodes
2005-present	Grey's Anatomy	Ellis Grey	17 episodes Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
2006	Justice	Sarah Miller	Episode: "Death Spiral"
2007	Supreme Courtships	Justice Suzanne Mary Lynch	Unsold TV pilot
2008	Medium	Bonnie Barrister	Episode: "To Have and to Hold"
2009	Eleventh Hour	Gepetto / Miranda Cochran	Episode: "Pinocchio"
2009	Washingtonienne	Joy	Episode: "Pilot"
2009-2012	Good Wife, TheThe Good Wife	Victoria Adler	3 episodes
2010	Deep End, TheThe Deep End	Grace Graham	Episode: "Pilot"
2011	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Annette Cole	Episode: "Bully"
2011	Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior	Deirdre Norris	Episode: "Smother"
2011	Closer, TheThe Closer	Kate Wycoff	Episode: "Forgive Us Our Trespasses"
2011	Grimm	Marie Kessler	2 episodes
2012	Veep	Barbara Hallowes	2 episodes
2012	Made in Jersey	Lorraine Beckett	Episode: "Cacti"
2012-present	Scandal	Vice President Sally Langston	23 episodes Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
2013	Revolution	Dr. Jane Warren	Episode: "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia"
2014	Rake	Holly Phillips	Episode: "Hey, Good Looking"
2016	Madam Secretary	Maureen McCord	Episode:"Invasive Species"
2014-2015	Extant (TV series)	Fiona Stanton

[ Source: Wikipedia ]