Stage work Burton's first notable role on Broadway was in a 1982 production of the
Noël Coward play
Present Laughter directed by
George C. Scott. The following year, she appeared in the Broadway musical
Doonesbury, playing J.J. Burton also appeared as Alice in
Eva Le Gallienne's
Alice in Wonderland on Broadway, produced by
The Mirror Theater Ltd's Sabra Jones. Several key roles followed, including roles in
Wendy Wasserstein's
An American Daughter and
Martin McDonagh's
The Beauty Queen of Leenane. In 2002, she received
Tony Award nominations in separate performance categories:
Best Actress in a Play, for her portrayal of the title role in
Henrik Ibsen's
Hedda Gabler, and
Best Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayals of Pinhead/Mrs. Kendal in the revival of
The Elephant Man. In 2006, Burton starred in the
Off-Broadway production of ''The Water's Edge'' opposite
Tony Goldwyn. That year, she again received a Tony nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her role in
W. Somerset Maugham's
The Constant Wife. On December 21, 2007, she joined the cast of the Broadway musical
Spring Awakening Kristine Nielsen replaced her on March 2, 2008, for a short stint until Estabrook reassumed the role. During the summer of 2010, Burton portrayed actress
Katharine Cornell in
A.R. Gurney's
The Grand Manner at
Lincoln Center in New York. In April 2017, she began playing Liz Essendine in the Broadway revival of
Present Laughter, the play in which she made her debut.
Film and television Burton's first screen appearance was in the 1969 film
Anne of the Thousand Days, starring her father, with whom she later appeared as Alice opposite his White Knight in the 1983
Great Performances broadcast of
Alice in Wonderland, and in the 1984 CBS miniseries
Ellis Island. Other films include
Big Trouble in Little China,
The First Wives Club,
Life with Mikey, and
The Ice Storm. Burton has said of these roles that she usually plays "the sweet wife, or the sweet dead wife." Burton has been perhaps most prolific in her work on television. She made many television appearances in the late 1980s and 1990s on such episodic shows as
Spenser: For Hire,
All My Children, and
Brooklyn Bridge. About playing the mother, in her late thirties, of
David Schwimmer's character in the short-lived 1994
FOX sitcom,
Monty, she said, "you don't really start playing moms in Hollywood until you're in your 40s, and usually the kids are almost your age! When I played Schwimmer's mother, I was 37 and he was, I think, 28. . . that happens a lot in TV and film; you really do end up being close in age to your child, which is nonsensical." In 1996, Burton won a
Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a mother dying of breast cancer in the
ABC Afterschool Special, 'Notes for my Daughter'. More recently, she made guest appearances as recurring characters on
Law & Order,
The Practice,
The West Wing,
Judging Amy and
Medium. She also appeared on the
HBO miniseries Empire Falls. Some of her recurring television roles have involved subplots concerning
Alzheimer's disease. On
FX network's
Rescue Me, she played the role of Rose, a friend and possible romantic interest to Chief Jerry Reilly. Reilly, whose wife is in a facility suffering from Alzheimer's, hires Rose, a caregiver for her husband who was also a victim, to provide assistance and emotional support. Burton's most visible and well-known role to date is the mysterious and difficult mother of Dr.
Meredith Grey (
Ellen Pompeo), the titular character on
ABC's
medical drama ''
Grey's Anatomy''. Burton plays Dr. Ellis Grey, the former trailblazing surgeon, and a two-time winner of the fictionalized, prestigious Harper Avery Award. Her character's battle and death of Alzheimer's is central to Meredith's story in all seasons of the series, as Meredith fears both getting the disease and resembling her mother as she ages. The character is also revealed to be the birth mother of Meredith's half-sister, Dr.
Maggie Pierce (
Kelly McCreary) through her love affair with Dr.
Richard Webber (
James Pickens, Jr.). Like Schwimmer's character in
Monty, Burton and Pompeo (who portrays Meredith) also have a small age gap, with Pompeo being 12 years her junior. In-universe, Meredith (born 1978) is 25 years younger than Ellis (born 1953), with Pompeo aged down 11 years and Burton aged up 4 years. (Though the character's exact ages were not determined until a
retcon was established in
season 11). In 2008, the New York City Chapter of the
Alzheimer's Association singled her out for her compelling performances in both shows. In 2006 and 2007, Burton received
Emmy nominations for her ''Grey's Anatomy'' role. Burton's character dies in the
third season episode "Some Kind of Miracle", which aired in 2007; she returned to the role five years later, in the
season 8 alternate reality episode. It depicts a version of her life where Richard did not leave her and she did not have Alzheimer's. Burton's character is central to the
eleventh season, as Meredith's marital struggles begin to parallel her own mother's struggles, something she feared. She reprised her role in flashbacks for the
eleventh season, showing Ellis briefly before her Alzheimer's diagnosis. In
season 14's landmark 300th episode, Burton's Ellis is shown as a dream-sequence figure, clapping for Meredith, who has also now won a Harper Avery award. She re-appears twice as a dream sequence figure in the
fifteenth season. Burton will return to the role in the
eighteenth season, beginning with its season premiere. In 2011, Burton appeared as Marie Kessler, a veteran monster hunter, and the aunt of Nick Burkhardt in the opening episodes of the NBC supernatural drama
Grimm. Since 2012, she plays the recurring role of Vice President Sally Langston in the ABC hit show
Scandal, for which she again received an Emmy nomination. In March 2017, she reprised her role as Aunt Marie Kessler in the series finale of
Grimm.
Other work Burton has narrated numerous
audiobooks, including works by:
Patricia Cornwell,
Lisa Scottoline,
Iris Johansen, and
Dean Koontz. == Personal life ==