Julie Deborah Kavner (born September 7, 1950) is an American actress. She first attracted notice for her role as Brenda Morgenstern, the younger sister of Valerie Harper's title character in the sitcom Rhoda, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She is best known for her voice role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons. She also voices other characters for the show, including Marge’s mother, Jacqueline Bouvier, and sisters Patty and Selma Bouvier. Known for her improvisation and distinctive "honeyed gravel voice", Kavner was cast in her first professional acting role as Brenda Morgenstern in Rhoda in 1974. She received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for playing the character, winning the award in 1978, the year that the series ended. Starting in 1987, Kavner started appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show. The Tracey Ullman Show included a series of animated shorts about a dysfunctional family. Voices were needed for the shorts, and the producers asked Kavner to voice Marge. The shorts were spun off into The Simpsons. Kavner has been described as "nearly reclusive"; part of her contract says that she will never have to promote The Simpsons on video. For her work as Marge, Kavner received another Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992 and an Annie Award nomination for her performance as the character in The Simpsons Movie. Typically cast as a "woman who is supportive, sympathetic or self-effacingly funny", Kavner grew to dislike playing such roles. In 1992, she starred in This Is My Life, her first leading role in a feature film. Kavner has also appeared in live-action roles in six films written by Woody Allen, and in the Adam Sandler comedy Click.
