Age, Biography, and Wiki
Christine Baranski was born on May 2, 1952, in Buffalo, New York, to parents Lucien Baranski and Virginia Mazurowska. She is known for her strong performances in both theater and film. Baranski graduated from Juilliard School in 1974, marking the beginning of her successful acting career.
| Occupation | Stage Actress |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 2 May 1952 |
| Age | 73 Years |
| Birth Place | Buffalo, New York, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Taurus |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
- Height: Christine Baranski stands at 5 feet 9¾ inches (177 cm).
- Weight: She weighs 136 pounds (62 kg).
- Build: Slim.
- Shoe Size: US size 9.
| Height | 177 cm |
| Weight | 62 kg |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Baranski was married to Matthew Cowles from 1983 until his death in 2014. They had two daughters, Isabel Cowles and Lily Cowles.
Christine Jane Baranski (born May 2, 1952) is an American actress. She received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Maryann Thorpe in the sitcom Cybill (1995–1998). Baranski is also known for her roles as Diane Lockhart in the legal drama series The Good Wife (2009–2016) and its spin-off series The Good Fight (2017–2022), and as Agnes van Rhijn in the period drama series The Gilded Age (2022–present), both roles which earned her Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
Baranski appeared in short-term roles on various daytime soap operas, including All My Children and Another World. Baranski was featured as Cybill Shepherd's sarcastic, hard-drinking friend Maryann Thorpe in the CBS sitcom Cybill, which ran from 1995 until 1998, during which time she hosted Saturday Night Live and won an Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series along with three other nominations. During this, Baranski portrayed a librarian named Sonja Umdahl in the "Dick and the Single Girl" episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun. A few years later, Baranski received an Emmy nomination for a guest starring role in the NBC series Frasier as a controversial tough love radio psychiatrist named Dr. Nora. The episode, which was named for the character, parodied Dr. Laura Schlessinger. The episode was pulled from syndication by Paramount. Baranski had an uncredited role in the series Now and Again as the voice of Roger's overbearing wife Ruth, who was never seen by viewers.
Baranski later appeared in the 2000–2001 sitcom Welcome to New York and, with John Laroquette, in the 2003–2004 NBC sitcom Happy Family. She co-starred with Bernadette Peters in a pilot for an ABC sitcom, Adopted, in 2005, which was not picked up. She also played Faith Clancy, the mother of Jim Clancy in Ghost Whisperer. In 2009, Baranski began guest-starring in The Big Bang Theory as Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, a dispassionate psychiatrist and neuroscientist and mother of one of the protagonists, Leonard Hofstadter. She first appeared in the second-season episode "The Maternal Capacitance", for which she received an Emmy nomination. Due to the popularity of her first appearance, Baranski returned in the third season for the Christmas episode "The Maternal Congruence", receiving another Emmy nomination. She appeared in a total of 16 episodes during the show's run, earning four Emmy nominations for her recurring role.
From 2009 to 2016, Baranski played the role of Diane Lockhart, a top litigator and senior partner of a Chicago law firm on the CBS series The Good Wife. She was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for six seasons of the series, in the years 2010 to 2015. Besides her work on The Good Wife and the aforementioned guest appearances on The Big Bang Theory, her other recent appearances include Ugly Betty in 2009 as Victoria Hartley, the haughty mother of Betty's new boyfriend.
From 2017 to 2022, Baranski starred in the CBS spinoff of The Good Wife, titled The Good Fight. Her character, Diane Lockhart, joins another law firm after being forced to return to work. In the 79th Golden Globe Awards, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for her work in the fifth season of the show. Since 2022 she has portrayed Agnes van Rhijn in the Julian Fellowes-created HBO period drama The Gilded Age starring opposite Carrie Coon, Louisa Jacobson, and Cynthia Nixon. The cast received a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Matthew Cowles (m. 1983-2014) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Christine Baranski's net worth is estimated to be around $14 million. Her earnings come from her extensive work in television, film, and theater, including her roles in "Cybill," "The Good Wife," and "Mamma Mia!" among others.
Career, Business, and Investments
Christine Baranski's career is marked by her versatility and range:
- Theater Career: She began her career in theater, earning two Tony Awards for Best Actress.
- Television: Notable roles include "Cybill" and "The Good Wife."
- Film: She has appeared in films like "Mamma Mia!" and "Chicago."
- Business and Investments: While specific business investments are not widely documented, her long-standing career in the entertainment industry suggests a focus on her craft rather than business ventures.
Baranski also appeared in a one-night-only concert benefit performance of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music for Roundabout Theatre Company as Countess Charlotte Malcolm on January 12, 2009. The cast included Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Victor Garber and Marc Kudisch. Baranski has won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Awards twice. In 2018, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Although recognized for her versatility across genres and performing media, Baranski is particularly known for playing sophisticated and highly educated upper-class women. Consequently, the media began alluding to the resemblance between this repeated on-screen persona and Baranski's real personality. Caroline Hallemann of Town & Country notes that, "For years, the award-winning actress has been the definition of on-screen sophistication." In 2017, the actress told Zac Posen for Interview Magazine, "What I'm getting at is if your career is not predicated on just your physical beauty, you're able to project a sophistication. You can take sophisticated to your grave. You can be that worldly woman, that woman who looks beautiful dressed up." On the other hand, Baranski humorously addressed these claims during her appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, "Everybody thinks this is, you know, this sophisticated lady, this New York type, these characters that I play, they think that's me. They should be in a room alone with me when I watch the Buffalo Bills. It is loud."
Baranski has received numerous accolades over her career including a Primetime Emmy Award, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Tony Awards. Baranski is also the most nominated performer at the Critics' Choice Television Awards, with 10 nominations.
Social Network
Baranski is not very active on social media platforms, preferring to maintain a private life away from the public eye.
Education
Baranski attended the Villa Maria Academy for her secondary education and later enrolled in the Juilliard School in 1970, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama in 1974.
She had an older brother, Michael J. Baranski (1949–1998), an advertising executive who died at age 48. She is of Polish descent, and her grandparents were stage actors in Poland before emigrating to US. Baranski was raised in a heavily Polish and Catholic neighborhood in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga. She attended high school at the Villa Maria Academy where she was class president and salutatorian. She studied at New York City's Juilliard School (Drama Division Group 3: 1970–1974), where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
