Kate Burton
Burton in 2025
Born	Katherine Burton (1957-09-10)September 10, 1957 (age 68) Geneva, Switzerland
Citizenship	United Kingdom United States
Education	Brown University (BA) Yale University (MFA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1982–present
Spouse	Michael Ritchie ​ (m. 1985)​
Children	2
Parents	Richard Burton (father) Sybil Christopher (mother)

Katherine Burton (born September 10, 1957)^[1][2] is a Welsh and American actress, the daughter of actorsRichard Burton andSybil Christopher. On television, Burton received critical acclaim as Dr. Ellis Grey in the drama seriesGrey's Anatomy, and as Vice President Sally Langston onScandal.^[3] She has been nominated for threePrimetime Emmy Awards and threeTony Awards.^[4]

Burton was born inGeneva, Switzerland, the daughter of Welsh parents, producerSybil Burton (née Williams) and actorRichard Burton.^[5] She was thus the stepdaughter ofElizabeth Taylor and of Sybil's second husbandJordan Christopher, both actors. Burton earned a bachelor's degree in Russian Studies and European History fromBrown University in 1979, where she was on the board ofProduction Workshop, one of the university's student theater groups, and a master's degree fromYale School of Drama in 1982. Brown awarded Burton an honorarydoctorate in 2007.^[6][7]

Burton's first notable role on Broadway was in a 1982 production of theNoël Coward playPresent Laughter directed byGeorge C. Scott. The following year, she appeared in the Broadway musicalDoonesbury, playing J.J. Burton also appeared as Alice inEva Le Gallienne'sAlice in Wonderland on Broadway, produced byThe Mirror Theater Ltd's Sabra Jones. Several key roles followed, including roles inWendy Wasserstein'sAn American Daughter andMartin McDonagh'sThe Beauty Queen of Leenane.^[8][9]

In 2002, she receivedTony Award nominations in separate performance categories:Best Actress in a Play, for her portrayal of the title role inHenrik Ibsen'sHedda Gabler, andBest Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayals of Pinhead/Mrs. Kendal in the revival ofThe Elephant Man.^[9] As of May 2019, she is one of only six actors, includingAmanda Plummer,Dana Ivey,Jan Maxwell,Mark Rylance, andJeremy Pope, to be nominated for Tony awards in two different categories in the same year.^[10] In 2006, Burton starred in theOff-Broadway production ofThe Water's Edge oppositeTony Goldwyn.^[11] That year, she again received a Tony nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her role inW. Somerset Maugham'sThe Constant Wife.^[9] In 2007, she played Ranevskaya inThe Cherry Orchard at Boston's Huntington Theatre.^[12] On December 21, 2007, she joined the cast of the Broadway musicalSpring Awakening^[9] in the role of the Adult Women when she replaced actressChristine Estabrook.^[13]Kristine Nielsen replaced her on March 2, 2008, for a short stint until Estabrook reassumed the role.^[14] During the summer of 2010, Burton portrayed actressKatharine Cornell inA.R. Gurney'sThe Grand Manner atLincoln Center in New York.^[15] In April 2017, she began playing Liz Essendine in the Broadway revival ofPresent Laughter, the play in which she made her debut.^[16]

Burton's first screen appearance was in the 1969 filmAnne of the Thousand Days, starring her father, with whom she later appeared as Alice opposite his White Knight in the 1983Great Performances broadcast ofAlice in Wonderland, and in the 1984 CBS miniseriesEllis Island. Other films includeBig Trouble in Little China,The First Wives Club,Life with Mikey, andThe Ice Storm. Burton has said of these roles that she usually plays "the sweet wife, or the sweet dead wife."^[17]

Burton has been perhaps most prolific in her work on television. She made many television appearances in the late 1980s and 1990s on such episodic shows asSpenser: For Hire,All My Children, andBrooklyn Bridge. About playing the mother, in her late thirties, ofDavid Schwimmer's character in the short-lived 1994FOX sitcom,Monty, she said, "you don't really start playing moms in Hollywood until you're in your 40s, and usually the kids are almost your age! When I played Schwimmer's mother, I was 37 and he was, I think, 28. . . that happens a lot in TV and film; you really do end up being close in age to your child, which is nonsensical."^[18] In 1996, Burton won aDaytime Emmy award for her performance as a mother dying of breast cancer in theABC Afterschool Special, 'Notes for my Daughter'. More recently, she made guest appearances as recurring characters onLaw & Order,The Practice,The West Wing,Judging Amy andMedium. She also appeared on theHBOminiseriesEmpire Falls.

Some of her recurring television roles have involved subplots concerningAlzheimer's disease. OnFX network'sRescue Me, she played the role of Rose, a friend and possible romantic interest to Chief Jerry Reilly. Reilly, whose wife is in a facility suffering from Alzheimer's, hires Rose, a caregiver for her husband who was also a victim, to provide assistance and emotional support. Burton's most visible and well-known role to date is the mysterious and difficult mother of Dr.Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), the titular character onABC'smedical dramaGrey's Anatomy. Burton plays Dr. Ellis Grey, the former trailblazing surgeon, and a two-time winner of the fictionalized, prestigious Harper Avery Award. Her character's battle and death of Alzheimer's is central to Meredith's story in all seasons of the series, as Meredith fears both getting the disease and resembling her mother as she ages. The character is also revealed to be the birth mother of Meredith's half-sister, Dr.Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary) through her love affair with Dr.Richard Webber (James Pickens, Jr.).

Like Schwimmer's character inMonty, Burton and Pompeo (who portrays Meredith) also have a small age gap, with Pompeo being 12 years her junior. In-universe, Meredith (born 1978) is 25 years younger than Ellis (born 1953), with Pompeo aged down 11 years and Burton aged up 4 years. (Though the character's exact ages were not determined until aretcon was established inseason 11). In 2008, the New York City Chapter of theAlzheimer's Association singled her out for her compelling performances in both shows.^[19] In 2006 and 2007, Burton receivedEmmy nominations for herGrey's Anatomy role.^[20] Burton's character dies in thethird season episode "Some Kind of Miracle", which aired in 2007; she returned to the role five years later, in theseason 8 alternate reality episode. It depicts a version of her life where Richard did not leave her and she did not have Alzheimer's. Burton's character is central to theeleventh season, as Meredith's marital struggles begin to parallel her own mother's struggles, something she feared. She reprised her role in flashbacks for theeleventh season, showing Ellis briefly before her Alzheimer's diagnosis. Inseason 14's landmark 300th episode, Burton's Ellis is shown as a dream-sequence figure, clapping for Meredith, who has also now won a Harper Avery award. She re-appears twice as a dream sequence figure in thefifteenth season. Burton will return to the role in theeighteenth season, beginning with its season premiere.

In 2011, Burton appeared as Marie Kessler, a veteran monster hunter, and the aunt of Nick Burkhardt in the opening episodes of the NBC supernatural dramaGrimm. Since 2012, she plays the recurring role of Vice President Sally Langston in the ABC hit showScandal, for which she again received an Emmy nomination.^[21][20] In 2015, it was reported that Burton was cast in a leading role in the U.S.remake of the French-language filmMartyrs, which opened theatrically in January 2016.^[22][23] In March 2017, she reprised her role as Aunt Marie Kessler in the series finale ofGrimm.

Burton has narrated numerousaudiobooks, including works by:Patricia Cornwell,Lisa Scottoline,Iris Johansen, andDean Koontz.^[24]

In 1985, Burton marriedMichael Ritchie,^[25] Artistic Director of theCenter Theatre Group in Los Angeles and one of the producers of the Broadway musicalsThe Drowsy Chaperone andCurtains.^[26] They met in 1982, while Ritchie was stage manager of a revival ofNoël Coward'sPresent Laughter at theCircle in the Square Theatre in New York City in which Burton was playing the character Daphne.^[27] They have two children, son Morgan Ivor^[28][29] and daughter Charlotte Frances.^[30][31] Burton became a U.S. citizen in 2005, and also holds a U.K. passport.^[32]

• List of Tony Award records

Wikimedia Commons has media related toKate Burton (actress).

• Kate Burton atIMDb
• Kate Burton at theInternet Broadway Database
• Kate Burton at theInternet Off-Broadway Database (archived)

• Living people
• 1957 births
• 20th-century American actresses
• 21st-century American actresses
• American film actresses
• American expatriates in Switzerland
• American stage actresses
• American television actresses
• American voice actresses
• Brown University alumni
• Daytime Emmy Award winners
• David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University alumni

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