Tammy Blanchard

Life and career

Blanchard was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. She made her professional acting debut on the soap opera Guiding Light in 1997, where she played spoiled rich girl Drew Jacobs. Her role on the show increased over the years, and by the time of her departure in 2000 she had become a major player in the series.

She was then cast as the younger version of Judy Davis's Judy Garland in the 2001 ABC television docudrama Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. She received glowing reviews for her performance and earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie .

She played Marianne Mulvaney in the Lifetime television film We Were the Mulvaneys (2002), and was noted for her "fragile strength" by The New York Times reviewer. In 2004, she played Sally Reid in the CBS made-for-television film, When Angels Come to Town with Peter Falk.

Blanchard earned a Tony Award nomination and a Theatre World Award for her work in her Broadway debut in the 2003 revival of Gypsy, in which she played the title role opposite Bernadette Peters.

Blanchard's film roles include The Good Shepherd (2006), starring as the deaf lover of Matt Damon's character; Bella (2006), which took the top prize at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival; The Ramen Girl (2007); and Deadline (2009). She co-starred with Jessica Lange in the CBS television remake of the 1976 television film Sybil, in which she portrays a woman with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). She appeared in the multi-star cast of the television docudrama Living Proof (2008) as the first woman to have been treated with the breast cancer drug Herceptin.

She plays Amy Roberts, the widow of a murderer, in the made-for-television film Amish Grace, which first aired on the Lifetime Movie Network in March 2010. The movie is based on the West Nickel Mines School shooting. The Huffington Post noted that "This is an amazing young actress and she deserves to get better and better roles." The Hollywood Reporter noted that Blanchard gives "a moving turn".

She appeared in the 2010 film Rabbit Hole alongside Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as Kidman's sister.

Blanchard played the role of "office bombshell Hedy La Rue" in the Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which opened on March 27, 2011 and closed on May 20, 2012. For this role Blanchard received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

The feature film Union Square, co-written and directed by the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Award Winner, Nancy Savoca, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011, and is being screened in New York City in July 2012. In it, Blanchard co-stars with Patti Lupone, Mira Sorvino, Mike Doyle, Michael Rispoli and Daphne Rubin-Vega. She portrayed Eden in Karyn Kusama's thriller film The Invitation.

In 2014, Blanchard appeared as the stepsister Florinda in director Rob Marshall's film, Into the Woods, an adaptation of the popular stage musical. She appears in the film Tallulah, which debuted on Netflix in 2016.

Personal life

Blanchard lives in her hometown of Bayonne and has a daughter, Ava Jean Blanchard, who was born in 2007.