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Stage, screen, and TV actress Swoosie Kurtz's father was a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, and she was named after a plane he flew in World War II. After college she attended a drama school in London, and debuted onstage in a series of regional theater plays in the late '60s. In 1970 she appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, for which she won an Obie Award; she went on to a successful stage career, winning two Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics' Circle Award. Eventually Hollywood took an interest, and she became a regular on the TV sitcom Love, Sydney, winning an Emmy for her work. She debuted onscreen in a small role in Slap Shot (1977) then appeared in two successive flops; it was four years before her next screen role. Since 1982 she has had an intermittently busy film career, mostly in well-respected but not particularly successful productions. In the '90s she has co-starred in the TV series Sisters.