Actor

Helen Hunt

Born in Culver City, CA, Helen Hunt is the daughter of acting coach Gordon Hunt. She caught the acting bug early and was cast in her first role in 1973 (Pioneer Woman). As a child actor, Hunt had numerous TV appearances, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bionic Woman, and Knots Landing. Hunt showed early promise when she portrayed good-girl-gone-wrong Lizzie Eaton in ABC's After-School Special Angel Dusted. In the mid-80s, she made the jump from child to adult roles, with recurring parts on St. Elsewhere and The Hitchhiker. Hunt moved to New York in 1989 to pursue a career in theater, and was cast in Our Town and The Taming of the Shrew. During this time, her film career began to heat up, with roles in Peggy Sue Got Married, The Waterdance, Project X, and Stealing Home. When Paul Reiser approached her about a TV series he was putting together called Mad About You, Hunt jumped at the opportunity to play Jamie Buchman. She hadn't planned on making a long-term return to the small screen, but for eight seasons Hunt breathed life into Jamie, earning numerous awards along the way, including four consecutive Emmys and two Golden Globes. Hunt parlayed her popularity on the show into a successful film career, with a starring role in the 1996 blockbuster Twister and an Academy Award-winning performance in As Good As It Gets. Next to Liza Minnelli, Hunt is the second actor to win an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award in the same year (1998). That year, she appeared in Lincoln Center’s production of Twelfth Night, which was later broadcast on PBS. When Mad About You ended in 1999, she was the highest paid actress on television. She appeared in four movies in 2000: Pay It Forward, Dr. T and the Women, Castaway and What Women Want. Also having directed some episodes of Mad About You, she directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Then She Found Me, a film festival hit which was later released in April, 2008. In her personal life, she married long-time beau, actor Hank Azaria, in 1999, but the couple spilt in 2000. She and current boyfriend Matthew Carnahan have a daughter, Makena'lei Gordon Carnahan.