Emmy Award-winning actress and former `80s brat packer, Mare Winningham will soon grace the law offices of Crane, Poole and Schmidt on Boston Legal.   The actress is just one of the show's most recent casting coups following the addition of John Larroquette (McBride, Night Court) as a series regular and Saffron Burrows (Circle of Friends, Troy) and Gail O'Grady (American Dreams, NYPD Blue) as recurring cast members.

The 48-year old actress will take on the role of a bitterly grieving mother who seeks the help of James Spader's character, Alan Shore.  As the vindictive Patrice Kelly, Winningham tries to solicit Shore's advice on how to kill the man responsible for murdering her daughter, who was subsequently acquitted due to temporary insanity.  When Shore refuses to come to her aid, Patrice still goes on to avenge her loss by taking the life of her daughter's killer.  She then returns to Alan Shore and asks him to be her defense attorney during her own murder trial.

Mare Winningham is one of the nine brat packers from the 1980s, together with Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy.  With the exception of Hall and Ringwald, the rest of the group rose to fame in the cult coming-of-age hit movie, St. Elmo's Fire in 1985.

From there, Winningham has since earned an Oscar nomination for her role in Georgia and has bagged a pair of Emmys for Amber Waves and George Wallace.  More recently, she had guest appearances on ER, Six Feet Under, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Grey's Anatomy.

Her stint on the Boston Legal episode marks her second collaboration with series creator, David E. Kelley.  They previously worked together when she co-starred in his CBS show, The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H.

Boston Legal returns to ABC with its fourth season via a 90-minute premiere on September 25 at 9:30pm eastern.


-Rosario Santiago, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: AP, Zap2it
(Image Courtesy of Zap2it)