Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including six Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.
She is known for her role as Carrie Bradshaw in the HBO comedy drama series Sex and the City (1998–2004), for which she won two Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. The character was widely popular during the airing of the series and was later recognized as one of the greatest female characters in American television. She later reprised the role in the films Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010), as well as the revival series And Just Like That... (2021–present).
Parker made her Broadway debut at the age of 11 in the 1976 revival of The Innocents, before going on to star in the title role of the Broadway musical Annie in 1979. She made her first major film appearances in the 1984 dramas Footloose and Firstborn. Her other film roles include L.A. Story (1991), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Hocus Pocus (1993), Ed Wood (1994), The First Wives Club (1996), The Family Stone (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), New Year's Eve (2011), and Hocus Pocus 2 (2022).
In 2012, Parker returned to television for the first time since Sex and the City, portraying Isabelle Wright in three episodes of the Fox musical series Glee. She starred as Frances Dufresne in the HBO comedy drama series Divorce (2016–2019), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Since 2005, she has run her own production company, Pretty Matches, which has created content for HBO and other networks.
Early life
Sarah Jessica Parker was born in Nelsonville, Ohio, the daughter of Barbara Parker (née Keck), a nursery-school operator and teacher, and Stephen Parker, an entrepreneur and journalist. She was one of a total of eight children from her parents' marriage and her mother's second marriage; her full siblings include actors Timothy Britten Parker and Pippin Parker. Parker's parents divorced when she was 3 1⁄2 years old, and her mother married Paul Forste, a truck driver and account executive. Stephen, a native of Brooklyn, is Jewish (from a family from Eastern Europe) and his family's original surname was "Bar-Kahn" ("son of Kohen"). Barbara is of German, and some English, descent. Parker has identified culturally with her father's faith, Judaism, although she has had no religious training. Parker's parents struggled to support their large family – often the electricity could be shut off, or the family would have to forgo Christmases and birthdays for lack of money. Nonetheless, she has stated: "I wouldn't change any of it, for anything ... for the most part, we had everything we needed. Not always, but for the most part." Parker's mother immersed her children in culture and extracurricular activities. She often took them to free public institutions like the ballet and the theater in Cincinnati, so that they lived "full, rich lives", emulating the New York artistic scene.
As a young girl, Parker trained in singing and ballet, and was soon cast in the Broadway revival of William Archibald's play The Innocents. Her family moved to Cincinnati and then to Dobbs Ferry, New York, near New York City, so that she could get specialized training. There, her mother and stepfather helped Parker develop her career as a child actress. In 1977, the family moved to the newly opened planned community on Roosevelt Island, in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, and later to Manhattan. The family later moved to Englewood, New Jersey, where Parker attended Dwight Morrow High School.
Parker attended the School of American Ballet in New York City, the New York Professional Children's School, the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, and Hollywood High School in Los Angeles.
