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Frances Conroy (born November 13, 1953) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth, the matriarch of the Fisher family, on Six Feet Under, which earned her a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Conroy was born in Monroe, Georgia to a business executive father and a mother who also worked in business. She studied drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Juilliard School in New York City. She was a student at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania during the school year 1971-1972 where she was a member of the Mermaid Players and appeared in college... MORE

Frances Conroy (born November 13, 1953) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth, the matriarch of the Fisher family, on Six Feet Under, which earned her a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Conroy was born in Monroe, Georgia to a business executive father and a mother who also worked in business. She studied drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Juilliard School in New York City. She was a student at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania during the school year 1971-1972 where she was a member of the Mermaid Players and appeared in college theatrical productions. During the 1970s, she performed regularly with regional and touring theatrical companies (most notably The Acting Company), and appeared as Desdemona at the Delacorte Theatre in a production of Othello with Richard Dreyfuss and Raul Julia. One of her first film appearances was as a Shakespearean actress in Woody Allen's 1979 classic, Manhattan. In 1980, she made a very well-received Broadway debut in Edward Albee's The Lady From Dubuque. She focused primarily on her stage career for the next two decades, appearing in such productions as Our Town, The Little Foxes, and The Ride Down LESS