Ethnicity:
Allison Janney is of English descent with smaller amounts of German and Scottish and Dutch.
Allison Janney was born on November 19, 1959, in Boston, Massachusetts, the United States, to Jervis Spencer Janney, a real estate developer and a jazz musician, and Macy Brooks, a former actress, and a homemaker. She had two siblings, brothers Hal and Jay.
Janney attended the Miami Valley School in Dayton. She was named a distinguished alumna in 2005. She was an athlete who played field hockey and ran track with aspirations to be a champion figure skater as well, though an accident that badly hurt her legs during her teens prevented her from continuing.
After completing her schooling, she studied at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. It was during her college days that she met the renowned actor Paul Newman and developed a passion for acting. Paul and his wife Joanne used to teach and encourage Allison, and soon she started attending the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City for further training.
Because of her height, Janney faced outright prejudice over her size in terms of landing roles. At times questioning if she should remain in the industry, she persevered and eventually began to earn major honors.
Janney was featured in the 1993 TV movie Blind Spot, which starred Woodward and Laura Linney, before going on to co-star in a variety of film projects that included Wolf (1994), Big Night (1996), The Associate (1996), The Ice Storm (1997), The Object of My Affection (1998) and American Beauty (1999). Keeping her feet on the stage as well, Janney earned a lead actress Tony nomination for her role in the 1998 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge.
Then in the following year, she began to play press secretary C.J. Cregg in the award-winning presidential series The West Wing. Janney herself won four Emmys for her stint on the program, in both Lead and Supporting Actress categories.
While finding major success in TV, Janney maintained a formidable big-screen presence as well. She gave a nuanced, steadfast performance as the lover of Meryl Streep’s character in The Hours (2002), and later as a Jersey woman who becomes the apple of her widowed neighbor’s eye in Winter Solstice (2004).
In 2007 audiences came to know her as the direct, dog-loving stepmother of Ellen Page’s titular character in Juno, with Janney portraying less lovable moms in ventures like Hairspray (2007), Away We Go (2009) and The Way Way Back (2013). She has also done voiceover work as seen with Finding Nemo (2003), Over the Hedge (2006), Minions (2015) and Finding Dory (2016).
Nearly a decade after they first co-starred together in Juno, Janney teamed up with Ellen Page again in the 2016 Netflix indie film Tallulah.
In late 2017, Janney starred as the mother of infamous figure skater Tonya Harding, played by Margot Robbie, in the biopic I, Tonya. The performance netted the actress her first Golden Globe Award and, two months later, her first Oscar win.
Showing her trademark humor, Janney deadpanned how she did it all by herself in her Oscar acceptance speech, before going on to acknowledge her fellow nominees and support team.
For her role as Tonya Harding's mother, LaVona Golden, in the sports drama I, Tonya (2018), Allison won her first Golden Globe and her first Academy Award. Changing genres, she joined the supporting cast of the horror-thriller Ma (2019), starring Octavia Spencer.
Following the success of I, Tonya, Janney was cast in Troop Zero, The Addams Family, and Bad Education, all of which premiered in 2019, as well as in the upcoming Bombshell. Additionally, Janney will film lead roles in Breaking News in Yuba County, as well as in Lou.
Showcasing her singing chops, Janney was nominated for another Tony for her role in the 2009 musical 9 to 5. The actress continues to receive accolades for her projects: In 2014, she won two Emmys - one for her role in the sitcom Mom, which debuted the previous year, and another for her guest role as Margaret Scully in the Showtime series Masters of Sex. She was nominated again for both of those roles in 2015, winning for Mom and receiving her seventh Emmy. She's thus tied with Ed Asner and Mary Tyler Moore for the second-highest number of Emmy wins (seven) for performances, with Cloris Leachman leading the way with eight awards.
In October 2016, Janney became the first woman to receive the Alumni Award of The Hotchkiss School and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in the television industry, located at 6100 Hollywood Boulevard.
(When she becomes unexpectedly pregnant by a guy pal, a 16...)
2007(A 17-year-old New York City high school student feels cer...)
2011(In 1960's Mississippi, a young journalist roils her commu...)
2011(John Travolta leads an all-star cast - including Oscar wi...)
1998A lifelong supporter of the Democratic Party, Janney endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election.
Janney’s charitable involvements include Justice for Vets, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, Heifer International and The Miami Valley School in her hometown of Dayton, Ohio. She also works with the charity Modest Needs, which helps low-income households.
Quotations: "I never know how I'll feel on any given day, but I've got to look around me and take what I got and find some inspiration, some anger."
While struggling to succeed as an actress, Janney told people who inquired about what she did for a living that she was a photographer for "National Geographic".
Unmarried, Allison lives in Los Angeles, but she likes to spend her spare time in Vermont. Janney has said that people think she’s gay because she’s tall and not married. However, she has said she is not a lesbian. She stated: "If people think I’m gay, I’m fine with it. I’ll probably never get married, and I don’t think I really want to be. I’ve never had a lesbian experience, but I’m beginning to wish I were gay. I think I’d be a lot happier!"
Allison Janney’s family has experienced tragedy. She has spoken openly about it, and she dedicated her Oscar to her late brother Henry “Hal” Janney, saying: ‘This is for Hal. You’re always in my heart.’
She told Esquire Magazine that her brother took his own life, saying, “It’s shaken my world the way my world was never shaken before. He was an addict. Anyone who has to deal with an addict learns that it’s devastating to want something more for someone than they want for themselves.”
