Maura Tierney

Maura Lynn Tierney was born on the 3rd February 1965, in Boston, Massachusetts, she grew up in Hyde Park with her mum, Pat who is a real estate agent and her dad Joe, who is now a lawyer but used to be a Boston city councilman and a Mayoral candidate. Maura is of Catholic extraction and attended the Notre Dame Academy which is an all-girls Catholic high school in Hingham, Massachusetts. She has two younger siblings and is 5’3” tall.



Maura started off studying at New York University but left school before she graduated and got involved with the neighbouring Circle in the Square Theatre School where she met and became close friends with Richard Shepard and appeared in some of his works. It was Richard who gave her, her first small film role in his Manhattan set comedy ‘The Linguini Incident’ which was released in 1992.




Maura spent some time living in New York’s Hells kitchen and for a while was selling t shirts door to door in college dorms. She eventually moved to Los Angeles where she found herself an agent and got a part in ‘The Van Dyke Show’ but this was unfortunately cut after just two months. She got her first leading film roll in ‘Dead Women in Lingerie’ in 1992 but this did little to advance her career.



She continued to find work in dribs and drabs, mostly failed sitcoms – The Ralph Macchio series being one of them, it was on the set of this show that she met her husband Billy Morissette where they were both fired from the set! Maura claims that he deserved it, but she didn’t. They married in 1994 but had actually been together since 1988. Maura diagnosed her husbands appendix attack using her ER textbook! They don’t have any children just a black Pug called Rose Kennedy. The couple and their dog spent a lot of their spare time travelling the United States and had visited every state except two – Iowa and Kansas.


Maura filed for divorce in 2006 stating that there were irreconcilable differences.






















Maura’s big break came when at the last minute she was cast the lead part of Lisa Miller in the sitcom pilot “The Station” which was later renamed “News Radio”. This led to a supporting role in “Primal Fear”. And she later got a role as a single mom who falls for hockey player Bruce Willis, however after just two weeks of shooting ‘creative differences’ brought an end to the task.

She has also starred alongside Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar”, Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock in “Forces of Nature” Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols on “Primary Colors”, Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr in “Instinct”, as well as a role in “Scotland P.A.”, a film written and directed by her husband Billy Morisette. Also to her credits a role alongside Robin Williams, Al Pacino and Hilary Swank in “Insomnia”.

What Maura is probably most recognised for is her role as Nurse Abby Lockhart in the hit ER. She was the cast the part in 1994 without an audition. She won an Emmy Award nomination for her performance as a former medical student who's resumed her career as a doctor. She is amazing in this role and her strange but notable beauty along with her incredible acting ability makes her a character that is very easy to empathize with, it is very few actors who are capable of this.


One of Maura’s closest friends is Laura Innes, her ER co-star – she plays Kerry Weaver.


A couple of her personal quotes;

“I have so many insecurities they fight for prominence”
“I prefer living in New York over Los Angeles, or for that matter any other city I have visited”
“I don’t think that there is anything particularly innocent about me”


Credits

Student Exchange - Kathy Maltby (1988)

Crossing the Mob – Michelle (1988)

The Van Dyke Show - Jillian Ryan (1988)

Family Ties – Episode - My Best Friends Girl – Darlene (1989)

Booker – Episode – Reunion - Donna Cofax (1990)

Flying Blind – Donna (1990)

Dead Women in Lingerie - Molly Field (1991)

Law and Order – Episode – Aria - Patricia ‘Patti’ Blaine (1991)

The Linguini Incident – Cecelia (1992)

White Sands – Noreen (1992)

Fly by Night – Denise (1992)

The Temp - Sharon Derns (1993)

Out of Darkness – Meg (1994)

Lifestories; Families in Crisis – A Body to Die For. The Aaron Henry Story (1994)

704 Houser Street - Cherlyn Markowitz. (1994)

Mercy - Simonet (1995)

Primal Fear - Naomi Chance (1996)

Liar Liar - Audrey Reede (1997)

Primary Colors – Daisy Green (1998)

Forces of Nature – Bridget Cahill (1999)

Newsradio – Lisa Miller – 75 episodes (1995 – 1999)

Oxygen – Det. Madeline Foster (1999)

Instinct – Lynn Powell (1999)

King of the Hill – Voice of Tanya – 1 episode (2000)

Sammy – Voice of Kathy Kelly (2000)

Scotland Pa – Pat McBeth (2001)

Insomnia – Rachel Clement (2000 – 2001)

Rooftop Kisses – Denise (2002)

The Nazi – Helen (2002)

Melvin Goes to Dinner - Leslie (2003)

Welcome to Mooseport – Sally Mannis (2004)

Danny Roane – First Time Director - Maura Tierney (2006)

Diggers – Gina (2006)

The Go Getter (2007)

ER - Nurse Abby Lockhart / Doctor Abby Lockhart – 161 episodes (1994 –
present)












If there are any errors in this post then please get in touch with me, my e-mail address is sam.watson01@tiscali.co.uk.