Betty Buckley

Betty Buckley most recently led the national tour of Hello, Dolly!

In an award-winning career that encompasses television, film, stage, and concert work around the globe, Betty Buckley is best known as the quintessential musical theatre actress. Stage roles range from the wife of an early U.S. President in 1776, which marked Buckley's Broadway debut, to her critically acclaimed, Olivier Award-nominated performance as the deluded, silent screen star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, a part she re-created on Broadway to equal success. Buckley also earned a Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella in Cats and a Tony nomination for Triumph of Love.
Her other Broadway credits include Pippin, Song and Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and Carrie. Off-Broadway credits include the world premiere of Horton Foote's The Old Friends (Drama Desk Award nomination), White's Lies, Elegies, The Eros Trilogy, Juno's Swans, and I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road. Regional credits include The Perfectionist, Gypsy, The Threepenny Opera, Camino Real, Buffalo Gal, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Grey Gardens at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, NY and The Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles, for which she received an Ovation Award Nomination.
In London she starred in Promises, Promises for which she was nominated for an Evening Standard Award and in the British premiere of Dear World.
In addition to her contributions to the stage, Buckley has also released an astonishing 17 solo albums, most recently Ghostlight, produced by Oscar and muti-Grammy Award-winning producer, T Bone Burnett, released in 2014, and Story Songs, released in 2017. Ms. Buckley's 18th solo album, Hope, recorded live at Joe's Pub, was released last spring by Palmetto Records.
She has twice been nominated for a Grammy Award, in 2000 for The Diaries of Adam and Eve and again in 2002 for Stars and the Moon: Live at the Donmar.
She tours in concert worldwide with her ensemble of musicians and in 2015 was featured in the Royal Albert Hall concert of Follies in celebration of Stephen Sondheim's 85th birthday.
Buckley's film roles include Miss Collins in Brian De Palma's classic Carrie (1976) and country singer Dixie Scott in Bruce Beresford's Tender Mercies (1983), which features her rendition of the Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning song "Over You." Ms. Buckley most recently co-starred with James McAvoy in the M. Night Shyamalan film Split (2017), for which she received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Featured Actress.
Additional film credits include Frantic (1988), Another Woman (1988), Wyatt Earp (1999), and M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening (2008). On television, Ms. Buckley played Abby Bradford in the drama series "Eight is Enough" (1977-1981) and received Daytime Emmy Award nominations for her work in both "Bobby and Sarah" (1984) and "Taking a Stand" (1989). She also had recurring roles on the HBO series "Oz" (2001-2003) and "Pretty Little Liars" (2012), and most recently on "Supergirl," "Chicago Med," "The Leftovers," and "Getting On."
In 2017, Buckley was honored with the prestigious Julie Harris Award by The Actor's Fund and in 2009, she received the Texas Medal of the Arts Award in Theater, following her induction into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in Austin, TX, in 2007. She has been awarded two honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts for her contribution to the musical theatre by Marymount College and the Boston Conservatory of Music. In 2012 she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.