by Charles Simmins

Created on: December 25, 2011   Last Updated: December 26, 2011

Julianna Margulies is at the peak of a career spanning the last twenty years. She is busy disproving the notion that actresses over forty cannot find roles in Hollywood. Currently starring in the hit CBS drama The Good Wife, Margulies has brought beauty back to Tinsletown.

Julianna Margulies is best known for roles on television. The talented actress won an Emmy and at least four Screen Actors Guiild (SAG) awards for her role as nurse Carol Hathaway on the NBC hospital drama

ER. As attorney Alicia Florrick on The Good Wife, she has earned an additional Emmy, a Golden Globe and two more SAG awards.

Margulies' career began at Sarah Lawrence where she took part in student productions while earning a B.A. In Liberal Arts. Her professional career began in 1991 and she appeared in a number of minor roles on hit shows before her role on ER. Her appearances included Law & Order, Murder, She Wrote, and Homicide: Life on the Streets. In the post ER era, she had roles in such shows as Scrubs, The Sopranos and Canterbury's Law.

The stage has also proved to be a successful venue for Margulies. With appearances both on and off Broadway, including a stint in the show Ten Unknowns opposite Donald Sutherland, she is building a reputation in legitimate theater.

The big screen beckons to most actresses and Margulies has appeared in both made for television movies as well as those for theatrical release. She co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson in the adventure / horror flick Snakes on a Plane. She also has appeared in films such as Ghost Ship, The Mists of Avalon and The Newton Boys.

The Los Angeles Times describes Margulies as having found a niche “tough beautiful women who suffer just enough.” The actress herself takes her career with a grain of salt. She once told Cinema Confidential “Honestly. If it’s going to cost me my soul, it’s not worth it. I was a waitress, if I have to I’ll go back; I know how to bartend. Nothing’s worth that to me.”

Julianna Margulies's latest work is a movie titled City Island. Co-starring with Andy Garcia and Alan Arkin, Raymond De Felitta, the director, described her as “... fierce and charming and confident and sexual, everything I wanted Joyce to be.“

Never standing still with her career, Julianna Margulies has begun a promising career as a commercial spokesman. The cosmetic firm L'Oreal has made her the face of their Revitalift campaign. It is a big change from her 1991 McDonald's commercial touting the Mac, Jr.

Learn more about this author, Charles Simmins.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.