Biography

Multiple Tony and Emmy award-winning actress JUDITH LIGHT is known for her extensive body of television, film, and onstage work, for which she recently received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Opposite Bette Midler, Ben Platt, and Gwyneth Paltrow, she currently stars in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series The Politician. Most recently, Light starred in Transparent, Amazon Prime’s Golden Globe-winning series, created by Jill Soloway, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination and multiple Emmy and Critics’ Choice nominations. In 2018, her role in Ryan Murphy’s Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, garnered her an Emmy and Critics Choice nomination.

Light can now be seen in Lionsgate/Spectrum Originals’ anthology series Manhunt: Deadly Games airing in 2020. Light is known globally for her roles as Angela Bower in the ground-breaking comedy Who’s The Boss and as Claire Meade in the ABC hit comedyseries Ugly Betty, which garnered her an Emmy nomination. Past select TV credits include: Law and Order: SVU; Dallas, Queen America, and One Life to Live – for which she received two consecutive Emmys.

On the film side, Light recently starred alongside Alec Baldwin and Mandy Patinkin in Before You Know It, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in August 2019 and Ms.White Light, which premiered at SXSW the same year. Light starred in and produced the film, Save Me, written by husband Robert Desiderio which premiered at Sundance in 2007. The year before, Light could be seen in the indie film Ira and Abby.

Light is also known for her variety of award-winning roles in the theater. In 2017, she starred in God Looked Away with Al Pacino at the Pasadena Playhouse. In 2016, All the Ways to Say I Love You (MCC) garnered her a Drama League Award nomination. For the Broadway production of Thérèse Raquin with Kiera Knightly, Light won an Outer Critics Circle Award. In 2012 and 2013, Light won two consecutive Tony and Drama Desk awards for her performances in Other Desert Cities and The Assembled Parties; these two performances dubbed her the first actor in nearly two decades to win consecutive Tonys. In 2011, Light received a Tony nomination for her role as Marie Lombardi in Lombardi, directed by Thomas Kail, and for the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit, she was awarded the Helen Hayes and Elliot Norton awards.

Light was honored with the 2019 Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for her extensive philanthropy work. She has been an impassioned advocate to end HIV/AIDS and is a champion for LGBTQIA+ and human rights. She supports organizations such as Broadway Cares Equity Fights Aids, among many others. She is on the Board of Directors for the MCC Theatre in New York City.