Tess Harper

Harper grew up in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, the daughter of Rosemary and Ed Washam, who operated Washam's Hardware. Harper has a brother and sister. She graduated from Mammoth Spring High School and attended Arkansas State University-Beebe, earning an associate degree in Fine Arts, before transferring to Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) in Springfield, Missouri, graduated with a degree in education, and taught ninth-grade English in Springfield, Missouri.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/141047191/?terms=%22Tess%20Harper%22&match=1 Tess Harper: 'Ozark Hillbilly', St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 11, 1987, page 101]

Harper began acting in theater productions, theme parks[https://books.google.com/books?id=zx9LCgAAQBAJ&dq=%22Tess+Harper%22&pg=PA63 Robert Cochran & Suzanne McCray, Lights! Camera! Arkansas pages 63-64, University of Arkansas Press, 2015] (including Dogpatch, USA and Silver Dollar City), dinner theater, and children's theater. She moved to Texas in order to appear in television commercials. The institution wanted to produce a TV spot and asked her to be in the spot, which she accepted. In a twist of fate, a casting person with Tender Mercies had to spend the night in Dallas and saw Harper's spot on TV. She called Robert Duvall and arranged an audition. Director Bruce Beresford was impressed with Harper and cast her in the lead female role of Rosa Lee, the young widow and mother who marries country singer Mac Sledge. Beresford said that Harper brought a kind of rural quality to the role without coming across as simple or foolish. He said of Harper, "She walked into the room and even before she spoke, I thought, 'That's the girl to play the lead.'"{{cite video |people= Bruce Beresford (actor), Robert Duvall (actor), Tess Harper (actor), Gary Hertz (director) |date= April 16, 2002 |title= Miracles & Mercies |url= https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383509/ |medium= Documentary |publisher= Blue Underground |location= West Hollywood, California |access-date= January 28, 2008}} Harper did not realize this, and recalled shortly after the film's release, "After I did the final screen test, I went to see Breaker Morant and started sobbing uncontrollably halfway through it. A friend had to take me home, and I kept crying, 'You don't understand! They're not gonna let me do this part!'"{{cite magazine |title=Success, Stress and Tess Harper|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=June 9, 1983 |issue=397|page=40}}

Tender Mercies was Harper's feature film debut.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/494482179/?terms=%22Tess%20Harper%22&match=1 Peter Wilson, Truth no stranger in this fiction, The Vancouver Sun, June 18, 1983, page 27] She earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for the role.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/799165299/?terms=%22Tess%20Harper%22&match=1 Clay Hutt, Golden Globes often mirror Oscars, El Paso Herald-Post, January 27, 1984, page 58]

Harper appeared in the TV mini-series Chiefs (1983) and Celebrity (1984), as well as many television movies including Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land (1983) and Reckless Disregard (1985). In 1983, she appeared in the full-length feature Silkwood.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/309671210/?terms=%22Tess%20Harper%22&match=1 Peggy Soric, Former SMS student Tess Harper enjoys success, Springfield Leader and Press (Springfield, Missouri), December 21, 1986, page 80] In 1986, Harper was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work as Chick Boyle in Crimes of the Heart, which was directed by her Tender Mercies director Bruce Beresford. She later played parts in Ishtar (1987), Far North (1988), The Man in the Moon (1991), The Jackal (1997) and Loggerheads (2005). She also took part in Michael Jackson's music video "Black or White" (1991), playing the mother.

From 1994 to 1995 Harper had a regular role on the CBS series Christy, playing mountain woman Fairlight Spencer.Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows 1946 – Present (7th edition), page 185, Ballantine, 1999 She also had a recurring role on another CBS television series, Early Edition, from 1996 to 2000. She portrayed the mother of lead character Gary Hobsen. Harper shared a Screen Actors Guild Award (in the Best Ensemble Cast category) with her fellow cast members in the Oscar-winning film No Country for Old Men, in which she played the wife of Tommy Lee Jones's character.

She had the recurring role of Mrs. Pinkman on Breaking Bad, appearing in the first three seasons, as well as the sequel HBO movie El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2775 Encyclopedia of Arkansas bio]
• {{IMDb name|0002128}}

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Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:21st-century American actresses

Category:Actresses from Arkansas

Category:American film actresses

Category:American television actresses

Category:Arkansas State University alumni

Category:Living people

Category:Missouri State University alumni

Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners

Category:People from Fulton County, Arkansas

Category:1950 births