Amy Irving

Amy Irving is an American actress whose screen career spans horror, drama, comedy, television, and theatre. Born in Palo Alto, California, on September 10, 1953, she grew up in a theatrical family: her father was director Jules Irving, a co-founder of the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop, and her mother was actress Priscilla Pointer. Irving studied at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and later attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

She became widely known as Sue Snell in Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of Stephen King’s *Carrie*. Sue is the remorseful classmate who attempts to make amends after participating in the cruel prank against Carrie White, arranging for her boyfriend Tommy Ross to take Carrie to the prom. Irving returned to the role decades later in the 1999 sequel *The Rage: Carrie 2*.

Irving appeared opposite Kirk Douglas and John Cassavetes in De Palma’s 1978 supernatural thriller *The Fury*, playing Gillian Bellaver, a young woman with psychic abilities who becomes entangled in a government project. In 1983, she co-starred with Barbra Streisand in *Yentl*, adapted from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s story. Irving played Hadass Vishkower, the woman who marries Avigdor, the man loved by Streisand’s title character. Her performance earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Among her best-regarded leading roles is Isabelle Grossman in Joan Micklin Silver’s 1988 romantic comedy *Crossing Delancey*. Isabelle is a Manhattan bookstore employee who is pushed by her grandmother and a matchmaker toward Sam Posner, a Lower East Side pickle seller played by Peter Riegert. The film became a lasting favorite for its portrayal of New York Jewish life and its understated romance.

Her other film credits include *Honeysuckle Rose* with Willie Nelson, *Micki + Maude* with Dudley Moore, *Rumpelstiltskin*, *Kleptomania*, *Traffic*, and *Adam*. In *Traffic* (2000), Steven Soderbergh’s interlocking drama about the drug trade, she played Barbara Wakefield, the wife of Michael Douglas’s character, Robert Wakefield. In *Adam* (2009), she portrayed Rebecca Buchwald, the mother of a young man with Asperger’s syndrome.

Irving has also maintained a substantial stage career. She appeared on Broadway in productions including *Amadeus*, *Heartbreak House*, *The Coast of Utopia*, and *Waiting for Godot*. Her television work includes the miniseries *The Winds of War* and *War and Remembrance*, in which she played Natalie Jastrow. She was married to filmmaker Steven Spielberg from 1985 to 1989; they have a son, Max Spielberg.