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Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Drama Series
This is a list of winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
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Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress of film, television and stage.
Hepburn holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins with four, from 12 nominations. Hepburn won an Emmy Award in 1976 for her...
Award Nominations:
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck (July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress, a star of film and television, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors such as...
Award Nominations:
Jane Wyman
Jane Wyman (January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007) was an American character actress of stage, film and television. She began her film career in the 1930s, and was a prolific performer for two decades. She received an Academy Award for Best Actress...
Award Nominations:
Barbara Bel Geddes
Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American actress, artist and children's author. She is best known for her role in the television drama series Dallas as matriarch Eleanor "Miss Ellie" Ewing. Bel Geddes also starred in...
Loretta Young
Loretta Young (January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress.
She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah as Gretchen Young, of Luxembourgian descent.At confirmation, she took the name Michaela. She and her family moved to Hollywood when she...
Joan Blondell
Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress.
After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career. Establishing herself as a sexy wisecracking blonde, she was a pre-Hays Code staple of Warner...
Jan Clayton
Jan Clayton (August 26, 1917, Tularosa, New Mexico - August 28, 1983, West Hollywood, California) was a film, musical theatre, and television actress.
None of her film roles were notable, except for an unbilled role as a singing inmate in The Snake...
Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino (4 February 1918 – 3 August 1995) was an English-American film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her forty-eight year career, she appeared in fifty-nine films, and directed nine others. She also appeared in...
June Lockhart
June Lockhart (born June 25, 1925) is an American television and film actress, primarily in 1950s and 1960s TV. She is best remembered as the mother on two TV series, Lassie and Lost in Space. She is also remembered as Dr. Janet Craig on the hit CBS...
Phyllis Kirk
Phyllis Kirk (September 18, 1927 - October 19, 2006) was an American actress.
Born Phyllis Kirkegaard in Syracuse, New York (some sources state Plainfield, New Jersey), she contracted polio as a child which resulted in health problems for the rest...
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Piper Laurie
Rosetta Jacobs, better known as Piper Laurie (born January 22, 1932), is an American actress of stage and screen noted for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks and the film Carrie.
Laurie was born Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit, Michigan, to...
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Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno (born December 11, 1931) is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the first and only Hispanic female and one of ten performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony and at the time the second Puerto Rican to...
Angela Lansbury
Angela Brigid Lansbury, CBE (born 16 October 1925) is an English actress and singer whose career has spanned seven decades. Her first film appearance was in Gaslight (1944), for which she received an Academy Award nomination as a malevolent maid,...
Shirley Knight
Shirley Enola Knight (born July 5, 1936) is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in 1960 for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and in 1962 for Sweet Bird...
Shirl Conway
Shirl Conway (June 13, 1916 - May 7, 2007) was an American television and Broadway actress.
She played Ruth Winters in the 1955 musical comedy Plain and Fancy on Broadway, for which she won a Theatre World Award. She also toured in Gentlemen Prefer...
Award Nominations:
Peggy Wood
Peggy Wood (February 9, 1892 – March 18, 1978) was an American actress of stage, film and television.
Born Mary Margaret Wood in Brooklyn, New York, Wood spent nearly fifty years on the stage, beginning in the chorus and becoming known as a Broadway...
Barbara Parkins
Barbara Parkins (born on May 22, 1942) is a Canadian television and film actress.
Parkins was born in Vancouver, British Columbia on 22 May 1942. At the age of sixteen, Parkins and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled at Hollywood...
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Anne Francis
Anne Lloyd Francis (born September 16, 1930) is an American actress, famous for her role in the science fiction film classic Forbidden Planet (1956), and as the female private detective in the television series Honey West (1965-1966). She won a...
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Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou and, excluding a 15 year hiatus, has appeared...
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Barbara Bain
Barbara Bain (born 13 September 1931) is an American actress.
Bain was born into a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology and moved to New York City where she was a...
Barbara Anderson
Barbara Anderson (born 27 November 1945, in Brooklyn, New York, United States) is an American actress best-known for playing the character of Eve Whitfield in the television series Ironside and also for her appearances as secret agent Mimi Davis...
Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman (born April 30, 1926) is an American actress of stage, film and television. She has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards—more than any other female performer—and one Daytime Emmy Award. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress...
Linda Cristal
Linda Cristal (born Marta Victoria Moya Burges on 23 February 1934 in Rosario,Argentina) is an Argentinean actress. She is currently retired.
In 1960, Cristal had gone into semi-retirement to raise her two sons, when John Wayne coaxed her out to...
Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson (born December 19, 1933) is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for appearances in the film Sounder and the television specials The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots.
Tyson was born and raised...
Peggy Lipton
Peggy Lipton aka Peggy Lipton Jones (born August 30, 1946) is an American television actress. She played "Julie Barnes" in The Mod Squad, and Norma Jennings in Twin Peaks.
Lipton was born in New York City, the daughter of Rita Hetty (née Benson), an...
Susan Hampshire
Susan Hampshire, Lady Kulukundis, OBE (born on 12 May 1937 in London) is an English actress best known for her many television and film roles. Her appeal has always been that of an "English rose".
Susan Hampshire was born in 1937, the youngest of...
Lynda Day George
For other entertainers with similar names, see Linda George (disambiguation).
Lynda Day George (b. December 11, 1944 in San Marcos, Texas) is an American television and film actress whose career spanned three decades from the 1960s to the 1980s. She...
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Elizabeth Montgomery
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery (April 15, 1933 – May 18, 1995) was an American film and television actress whose career spanned five decades. She is best remembered for her roles as Samantha Stephens in Bewitched, as Ellen Harrod in A Case of Rape...
Jeanette Nolan
Jeanette Nolan (December 30, 1911 – June 5, 1998) was an American actress, born in Los Angeles, California.
Miss Nolan was a graduate of Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles. She began her acting career at the Pasadena Community Playhouse and,...
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson, CBE (born 9 May 1936) is an English actress and politician, currently Labour Member of Parliament for the constituency of Hampstead and Highgate in the London Borough of Camden.
She was born in Birkenhead on the Wirral, where her...
Award Nominations:
Jean Marsh
Jean Lyndsey Torren Marsh (born 1 July 1934) is an English actress, occasional screenwriter, and co-creator of the television series Upstairs, Downstairs and The House of Eliott.
Marsh received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama...
Brenda Vaccaro
Brenda Buell Vaccaro (born November 18, 1939) is an American stage, television and film actress.
Vaccaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian American parents Christine M. (née Pavia) and Mario A. Vaccaro (originally a lawyer), both of whom...
Anne Meara
Anne Meara (born September 20, 1929) is an American comedian and actress. She and Jerry Stiller were a prominent 1960s comedy team, appearing as Stiller and Meara, and are the parents of actor/comedian Ben and actress Amy Stiller.
Meara was born in...
Angie Dickinson
Angie Dickinson (born September 30, 1931) is a Golden Globe-winning American actress who has appeared in more than 50 films and starred on television as Sergeant Leann "Pepper" Anderson in the successful 1970s crime series Police Woman.
Dickinson,...
Lindsay Wagner
Lindsay Jean Wagner (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. She is probably most widely known for her portrayal of Jaime Sommers in the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman (for which she won an Emmy award), though she has maintained a...
Award Nominations:
Melissa Sue Anderson
Melissa Sue Anderson (born September 26, 1962) is a Daytime Emmy- winning actress best known for playing Mary Ingalls on the NBC television series Little House on the Prairie, which aired from 1974 until 1983. She has been most recently seen as...
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Kate Jackson
Kate Jackson (born October 29, 1948) is an American actress, director, and producer. She is a three-time Emmy Award nominee, twice in the Best Actress category and once in the Best Supporting Actress category. She has also been nominated for several...
Susan Sullivan
Susan Michaela Sullivan (born November 18, 1942 in New York, New York) is an American character actress, primarily known for her roles on sitcoms, soap operas and television. Sullivan is best known for her roles as Lenore Curtin Delaney on the...
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Fionnuala Flanagan
Fionnghuala Manon Flanagan (born 10 December 1941) is an Irish actress who has worked extensively in theatre, film and television.
She was born Fionnghuala Manon Flanagan in Dublin, where she was raised, the daughter of Rosanna (née McGuirk) and...
Carol Burnett
Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933) is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she debuted on television. After successful appearances on The Garry...
Kristy McNichol
Christina Ann "Kristy" McNichol (born September 11, 1962) is an American former actress. She is best known for her roles as Leticia 'Buddy' Lawrence on the television drama series Family and as Barbara Weston on the sitcom Empty Nest. She is also...
Sada Thompson
Sada Thompson (born September 27, 1929) is an American stage, film and television actress.
Born Sada Carolyn Thompson in Des Moines, Iowa and raised in New Jersey, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre at the Carnegie Institute of...
Linda Gray
Linda Ann Gray (born September 12, 1940, in Santa Monica, California) is an American actress, best known for her role as Sue Ellen Ewing on the television prime-time soap opera Dallas.
Prior to acting, Gray began working as a model in the 1960s....
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Barbara Babcock
Barbara Babcock (born February 27, 1937 in Pasadena, California) is an American actress who works primarily on television.
Although she was born in the United States, she spent a large part of her childhood in Tokyo, Japan, because her father Conrad...
Michele Lee
Michele Lee Dusick (born June 24, 1942), better known as Michele Lee, is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the...
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Stefanie Powers
Stefanie Powers (born Stefania Zofia Federkiewicz; November 2, 1942) is an American actress. She starred as Jennifer Hart in the 1980s television series Hart to Hart.
The auburn-haired actress was born in Hollywood, California, to Polish American...
Michael Learned
Michael Learned (born April 9, 1939) is an American actress known for her role as Olivia Walton on The Waltons.
Learned was born in Washington, D.C., but lived on a farm with her five sisters for the first ten years of her life. She was named...
Linda Evans
Linda Evans (born on November 18, 1942) is an American actress known primarily for her roles on television. She rose to fame as Barbara Stanwyck's daughter, Audra Barkley, on the 1960s Western, The Big Valley (1965-1969). Evans' most prominent role...
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Swoosie Kurtz
Swoosie Kurtz (born September 6, 1944) is an American actress. She began her career in theater during the 1970s and shortly thereafter began a career in television, garnering ten nominations and winning one Emmy Award. Her most famous television...
Mariette Hartley
Mary Loretta "Mariette" Hartley (born June 21, 1940) is an American character actress.
Hartley was born in Weston, Connecticut, the daughter of Mary Ickes “Polly” (née Watson), a manager and saleswoman, and Paul Hembree Hartley, an account executive...
Joan Collins
Joan Henrietta Collins OBE (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author, and columnist.
Collins was born in Paddington, London, the daughter of Elsa (née Bessant), a dance teacher and nightclub hostess, and Joseph William Collins, an agent whose...
Award Nominations:
Christine Lahti
Christine Lahti (born April 4, 1950) is an American actress and film director.
Lahti was born in Birmingham, Michigan, the daughter of Elizabeth Margaret (née Tabar), a painter, homemaker and nurse, and Paul Theodore Lahti, a surgeon. Lahti has...
Susan Saint James
Susan Saint James (born August 14, 1946) is an American actress and activist, most widely known for her work in television during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Born Susan Jane Miller in Los Angeles, California to a Connecticut family, Saint James was...
Debbie Allen
Deborrah Kaye “Debbie” Allen (born January 16, 1950) is an American actress, choreographer, television director, television producer, and a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She is probably best known for her role as...
Veronica Hamel
Veronica Hamel (born November 20, 1943, in Philadelphia) is an American actress.
Hamel graduated from Temple University, worked as a secretary for a company which manufactured ironing board covers, then began a career as a fashion model after being...
Glenn Close
Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as deranged stalker Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction (1987). She has been nominated five times for an Oscar, and has won three...
Holly Hunter
Holly P. Hunter (born March 20, 1958) is an American actress. Her films include Raising Arizona, Broadcast News, Always, and The Piano for which she won several acting awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actress. She stars in the cable...
Linda Hamilton
Linda Carroll Hamilton (born September 26, 1956) is an American actress, best known for her roles as Sarah Connor in The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day and as Catherine Chandler in Beauty and the Beast.
Hamilton was born in...
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Susan Dey
Susan Dey (born December 10, 1952 in Pekin, Illinois) is an American actress, known primarily for her roles in film and television.
She was born Susan Hallock Smith, and later adopted her mother's maiden name as her professional name. She graduated...
Lorraine Bracco
Lorraine Bracco (born October 2, 1954) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Karen Hill in Goodfellas and Dr. Jennifer Melfi on the hit HBO TV series, The Sopranos.
Bracco was born in the Brooklyn, New York City neighborhood of...
