Mercedes Ruehl was born February 28, 1948 in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City to Mercedes Ruehl, a school teacher, and Vincent Ruehl, an FBI agent. She made several film and television appearance before coming to her most successfully received role in Terry Gilliam's Fisher King - Le roi pêcheur (1991). She played the part of Jeff Bridges's on-screen supportive yet neurotic girlfriend, Anne. Her performance in the film earned her an Oscar, a Golden Globe, Saturn Award, American Comedy Award, BSFC Award, CFCA Award, LAFCA Award and a Pasinetti Award. While Mercedes is first and foremost an actress of the stage, we should acknowledge her spellbinding performances as the mentally deranged and overbearing Connie Russo in Veuve, mais pas trop... (1988), the mentally challenged, protective, loving, and adventurous Bella in Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers (1993), and the dying and determined title-character in Pour l'amour de Roseanna (1997).
