--- name: "Marsha Mason" canonical: "https://film.one/person/marsha-mason" roles: ["Actor"] born: "3 April 1942" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-20T06:01:10.734602+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Marsha Mason Actor. Born 3 April 1942 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 3 April 1942, St. Louis, Missouri, USA - **Golden Globes:** 2 Golden Globes (2 won) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_Mason, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q235211, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0556850/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/19131 ## Coming up - *Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story* (2026-10-17), as Darlene ## Streaming the US now - **Tubi:** [*The Goodbye Girl*](https://film.one/film/the-goodbye-girl.md) (68) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Marsha Mason > Marsha Mason plays women who have been left and are furious about it, and her best moments are the ones where the fury lapses. Neil Simon gave her the parts and, too often, the volume; she is better than the scripts let her be. There is a moment in *The Goodbye Girl* (1977) where Paula McFadden stands in a doorway, her lodger says something kind, and she has no answer ready. For an hour Mason has been playing rudeness, because that is what Neil Simon wrote for a woman left by two men, the second while she was out. Then the face goes still and something younger looks out of it. That is what Mason does. She plays the defence loudly and the crack quietly, and the crack is where she earns her keep. The career divides in two. Before Simon there was the stage, daytime soaps, a low-budget debut in 1966, and then Maggie Paul in *Cinderella Liberty* (1973), a pool-hustling prostitute opposite James Caan, the part that made her a leading film actress. Then came Simon, five films together between 1977 and 1983, among them *Chapter Two* (1979), *Only When I Laugh* (1981) and *Max Dugan Returns* (1983). The women are variations on one woman: urban, resilient, single or lately divorced, coping with a setback she did not choose. After 1983 the film work slowed. *Heartbreak Ridge* (1986), as Aggie opposite Clint Eastwood, kept her on screen; after that it was recurring television, in *Frasier*, *The Middle* and *Grace and Frankie*, and the theatre, where she has directed since the mid-1980s and is still working in the 2020s. What she is good at is not seeming to act. She plays a scene as if she has not read the next page, and she is at her best when the character is caught out: at an audition she is too old for, in that doorway. She works for it, too. She had never danced before *The Goodbye Girl* and for three months "ran to dance classes all over Los Angeles" for two scenes. Richard Dreyfuss brings out the best in her, because he is fast and she is not, and the film needs someone in the flat who takes a beat. The trouble is the defensiveness, and it is only partly hers. Some critics found Paula exhausting, and the same note has followed her in lighter parts. For most of the first hour of *The Goodbye Girl* we were on the lodger's side and slightly ashamed of it, because Mason was plainly working and Simon had handed her the volume while Dreyfuss got the jokes. Then the audition scene arrived and she had us. Simon wrote her fast and mistook fast for funny; the actress underneath is slower and truer than the lines. Start with *The Goodbye Girl*, and watch the quiet scenes. The loud ones are Simon's. ## Biography Marsha Mason is an American actress and theatre director. Born on 3 April 1942 in St. Louis, Missouri, she made her film debut in 1966 and rose to prominence in the 1970s. She received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her performances in *Cinderella Liberty* (1973), *The Goodbye Girl* (1977), *Chapter Two* (1979) and *Only When I Laugh* (1981). The first two films also earned her Golden Globe Awards. She appeared in several films written by playwright Neil Simon, to whom she was married from 1973 to 1983, including *The Goodbye Girl* in which she played Paula McFadden. Mason has also worked extensively in television, with recurring roles in series such as *Frasier* and *The Middle*. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *The Goodbye Girl* (1977), Fi1m 68, as Paula McFadden — [page](https://film.one/film/the-goodbye-girl.md) ## Complete filmography (48) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story* (2026), as Darlene - *Grace and Frankie* (2015), series, as Arlene - *Madam Secretary* (2014), series, as Kinsey Sherman - *Across Grace Alley* (2013), as Grandmother - *The Middle* (2009), series, as Pat Spence - *The Good Wife* (2009), series, as Judge Louisa Page — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-good-wife.md) - *Lipstick Jungle* (2008), series, as Lorraine Lipman - *Army Wives* (2007), series, as Charlotte Meade - *Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King* (2006), series, as Aunt Trudy - *Bereft* (2004), as Helen - *The Long Shot* (2004), as Mary Lou O'Brian - *Bride & Prejudice* (2004), as Catherine Darcy - *Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows* (2001), series, as Ethel Gumm - *Restless Spirits* (1999), as Lydia - *2 Days in the Valley* (1996), as Audrey Hopper - *Nick of Time* (1995), as Gov. Eleanor Grant - *Broken Trust* (1995), as Judge Ruth Fraser - *I Love Trouble* (1994), as Senator Gayle Robbins - *Frasier* (1993), series, as Sherry Dempsey — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/tv/frasier.md) - *Sibs* (1991), series, as Nora Rusico - *Drop Dead Fred* (1991), as Polly - *Stella* (1990), as Janice Morrison - *The Image* (1990), as Jean Cromwell - *Dinner at Eight* (1989), as Millicent Jordan - *Seinfeld* (1989), series, as Jennie MacLaine — Fi1m 90, [page](https://film.one/tv/seinfeld.md) - *Hothouse* (1988), series, as Courtney Woods - *Little Miss Perfect* (1987), Director - *Heartbreak Ridge* (1986), as Aggie - *Trapped In Silence* (1986), as Jennifer Hubbell - *Surviving* (1985), as Lois - *Max Dugan Returns* (1983), as Nora McPhae - *Lois Gibbs and the Love Canal* (1982), as Lois Gibbs - *Only When I Laugh* (1981), as Georgia - *Chapter Two* (1979), as Jennie MacLaine - *Promises in the Dark* (1979), as Dr. Alexandra Kendall - *The Good Doctor* (1978), as Various Roles - *The Cheap Detective* (1978), as Georgia Merkle - *The Goodbye Girl* (1977), as Paula McFadden — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/film/the-goodbye-girl.md) - *Audrey Rose* (1977), as Janice Templeton - *The Amazing Miss Cummings: An Actress at Work and Play* (1977), Actor - *Cyrano de Begerac* (1974), as Roxane - *Cinderella Liberty* (1973), as Maggie Paul - *Blume in Love* (1973), as Arlene - *Young Dr. Kildare* (1971), series, as Nurse Lord - *Great Performances* (1971), series, as Roxane - *Where the Heart Is* (1969), series, Actor - *Beyond the Law* (1968), as Marcia Stillwell - *Hot Rod Hullabaloo* (1966), Actor ## Gallery - ![Marsha Mason](https://film.one/media/person/1245410/gallery-7946a2c2aec4.jpg) Marsha Mason — Marsha_Mason_and_Omar_Sangare_at_Dialogue_ONE.jpg: PathfinderPL derivative work: B3t (talk), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Marsha_Mason_at_Dialogue_ONE_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Star of The Goodbye Girl, 2 Days in the Valley, Frasier, and one-time SCCA racer. NYC Feb '18. (2018)](https://film.one/media/person/1245410/gallery-41757c66ac79.jpg) Star of The Goodbye Girl, 2 Days in the Valley, Frasier, and one-time SCCA racer. NYC Feb '18. (2018) — Greg2600, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Marsha_Mason_%2825323356757%29.jpg/1280px-Marsha_Mason_%2825323356757%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Portrait of actress Marsha Mason, photographed by Mary Motley Kalergis in New York City in 1985 for The Guardian (UK). Copyright retained by the photographer.](https://film.one/media/person/1245410/gallery-eb14eff29af1.jpg) Portrait of actress Marsha Mason, photographed by Mary Motley Kalergis in New York City in 1985 for The Guardian (UK). Copyright retained by the photographer. — MaryMotleyKalergisPhotography, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Marsha_Mason_1985_IPTC.jpg/1280px-Marsha_Mason_1985_IPTC.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Marsha Mason](https://film.one/media/person/1245410/gallery-cc51bcff8bdb.jpg) Marsha Mason — Image via TMDB - ![Marsha Mason](https://film.one/media/person/1245410/gallery-4d1b3a32414c.jpg) Marsha Mason — Image via TMDB - ![Marsha Mason](https://film.one/media/person/1245410/gallery-254b449c1384.jpg) Marsha Mason — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 4 nominated - 1982: Best Actress (nominated), for *Only When I Laugh* - 1980: Best Actress (nominated), for *Chapter Two* - 1978: Best Actress (nominated), for *The Goodbye Girl* - 1974: Best Actress (nominated), for *Cinderella Liberty* ### Golden Globes — 2 won - 1978: Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (won), for *The Goodbye Girl* - 1974: Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama (won), for *Cinderella Liberty* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/marsha-mason