Award-winning actress and playwright Patricia Wettig was born on December 4, 1951 in Grove City, Pennsylvania. She attended Ohio Wesleyan University, and later graduated from Temple University in 1975. She started her acting career in the early 1980s, after training at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse and appearing in stage productions, and later, in some television roles, eventually playing a recurring role in the medical drama St. Elsewhere.
Wettig became more prominent, however, with her role in the acclaimed drama series Thirtysomething, which premiered in 1987. She played Nancy Weston, a stay-at-home mother and artist who struggles with her life as a homemaker, her husband’s (Timothy Busfield) infidelities, and later, her bout with ovarian cancer. It earned her numerous acting awards, including three Emmy Awards (including two for Best Actress in 1990 and 1991) and one Golden Globe Award.
After her success in Thirtysomething, Wettig went on to appear in several other dramatic television series, either as a recurring character or as a guest: Courthouse, L.A. Doctors, The Practice and Breaking News, among others. She also became a reputable film actress, making her debut alongside Robert De Niro in the 1991 drama Guilty by Suspicion. That same year, she also starred in the comedy City Slickers, playing the wife of Billy Crystal’s lead character; she went on to appear in the 1994 sequel.
Wettig’s more recent roles include recurring characters in Alias and Prison Break, as well as a regular role in Brothers & Sisters. She joined Alias in 2002 as CIA psychotherapist Judy Barnett. She followed it up with a major role in the first season of Prison Break, which premiered in 2005; she played US Vice President Caroline Reynolds, whose brother (John Billingsley) was the man who Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) was convicting of killing. Her appearances in the second season became rare as she joined the cast of the drama series Brothers & Sisters in 2006, playing Holly Harper, the long-term mistress of William Walker (Tom Skerritt).
Wettig has recently concentrated on writing stage plays; she graduated with an MFA in playwriting from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in 2001.