Celebrity Nooz: Martha Plimpton

Martha Plimpton (Actress) - The Goonies

Updated: 1/13/22

Name: Martha Plimpton

Birth Name: Martha Campbell Plimpton

Born: November 16, 1970 in New York City, New York, USA

Claim To Fame: Martha Plimpton is an American actress, singer and former model best know to audiences as Stef Steinbrenner in the Richard Donner film The Goonies (1985).

Family Life: No info found.

Info: She is the daughter of actors Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton, who met while performing in the original Broadway run of Hair.

Her paternal grandfather was actor John Carradine.

She is an eighth cousin once removed of writer and editor George Plimpton, and, despite the different spelling, cartoonist Bill Plympton.

Member of The Steppenwolf Theatre Company Ensemble.

She attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.

Became a vegetarian as a teen after her boyfriend, the late River Phoenix, introduced her to the lifestyle.

She co-founded a production company, Everything is Horrible, which has produced short films for the internet.

She's a spokesperson for the Center for Reproductive Rights' Draw the Line campaign; a global legal organization dedicated to advancing women's reproductive health, self-determination and dignity as basic human rights.

Trivia: Her first stage appearance was when her mother brought her on stage in costume for the curtain call of the short-lived Broadway play The Leaf People.

Plimpton began her career as a model, securing an early 1980s campaign for Calvin Klein.

She made her feature film debut with a small role in the film Rollover (1981).

Her breakthrough performance was as Stef Steinbrenner in the 1985 film The Goonies.

During the filming of The Goonies (1985), she made a bet with director Richard Donner that she would stop biting her nails. Donner paid up several years later, while they were doing the film's DVD audio commentary.

This began Plimpton being cast in the role of a rebellious tomboy, beginning with her performance as the Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory)'s daughter in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast, starring Harrison Ford.

In 1986, Plimpton began a romantic relationship with The Mosquito Coast co-star River Phoenix. Their relationship lasted from February 1986 to June 1989; the relationship ended due to Phoenix's substance abuse.

This was released shortly before Running on Empty, an Oscar-nominated film, for which she was nominated for a Young Artist Award.

In her late teenage years, Plimpton was also active in theater, performing in regional theater in Seattle, Washington.

In 2002, Plimpton was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her guest appearance on the television drama 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.

In 2003, Plimpton narrated the audio book "Diary" by Chuck Palahniuk.

In 2004, she guest-starred in an episode of 7th Heaven, and wrote the episode of the show entitled "Red Socks", which aired in 2005.

She received the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance in Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" (2007).

In 2009, Plimpton starred on the Fox sitcom Raising Hope. Plimpton was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of Virginia Chance.

She had a recurring role in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife from 2009 to 2013, playing attorney Patti Nyholm. Her performance earned her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2012.

In 2010, she starred in Ed Gass-Donnelly's independent crime thriller Small Town Murder Songs, and was given a trophy for best actress by the Whistler Film Festival.

Where Are They Now: Currently, Plimpton is filming the TV Series 'Sprung' with 'Raising Hope' co-star Garret Dillahunt. She has also been cast in the TV Series 'A Town Called Malice', which is in pre-production.

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