Mare Winningham

Mary Megan "Mare" Winningham (born May 16, 1959) is an American actress and singer-songwriter. Her accolades include two Primetime Emmy Awards, alongside nominations for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards.

An eight-time Emmy Award nominee, she won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Amber Waves in 1980 and George Wallace in 1998. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1995 film Georgia.

Winningham's other film and TV roles include The Thorn Birds (1983), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), Miracle Mile (1988), Turner & Hooch (1989), The War (1994), Dandelion (2004), Swing Vote (2008), Brothers (2009), Mildred Pierce (2011), Hatfields & McCoys (2012), and appeared in American Horror Story for four seasons: Coven (2013), Freak Show (2014), Hotel (2015–16), and Cult (2017). She was cast as Meredith Grey's stepmother Susan Grey on Grey's Anatomy (2006–2007) and as Cherry Lockhart, Cole Lockhart's mother for seasons 1–2 and 4 of The Affair (2014–2016; 2018).

Winningham made her New York stage debut in the 2007 Off-Broadway musical 10 Million Miles, for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination. She made her Broadway debut in the 2013 revival of Picnic. In 2014, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the original Broadway production of Casa Valentina.