Lindsay Ann Crouse is an American actress. She made her Broadway debut in the 1972 revival of Much Ado About Nothing and appeared in her first film in 1976 in All the President's Men. For her role in the 1984 film Places in the Heart, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her other films include Slap Shot (1977), Between the Lines (1977), The Verdict (1982), Prefontaine (1997), and The Insider (1999). She also had a leading role in the 1987 film House of Games, which was directed by her then-husband David Mamet. In 1996, she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for "Between Mother and Daughter", an episode of CBS Schoolbreak Special. She is also a Grammy Award nominee.
Crouse was born in New York City, the daughter of Anna (née Erskine) and Russel Crouse, a playwright.[citation needed] Her maternal grandparents were author and educator John Erskine and his wife Pauline Ives. Lindsay Ann Crouse's full name is an intentional tribute to the Broadway writing partnership of Lindsay and Crouse, which consisted of her father and his writing partner, Howard Lindsay. The two wrote much of The Sound of Music. Their 1946 play State of the Union won that year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Their last collaboration was Mr. President in 1962. As Crouse has said: "In our family, the work ethic was held up as some kind of byword ... At any hour, somebody's typewriter was going."
After graduating from the Chapin School in 1966
and Radcliffe College in 1970, Crouse began her performing career as a modern and jazz dancer, but she soon switched to acting and made her Broadway debut in Much Ado About Nothing in 1972.[citation needed] She received her acting training at HB Studio in New York City.

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