After high school, she entered to the State University of New York at Fredonia. She also studied at the drama school, steadily striving to succeed in life. Ultimately, Mary Mcdonnell earned a degree from the University and started to work at the Long Wharf Theatre Company, where she participated in different plays. In 1981, she won her first award – Obie Award for Best Actress. She received it for her role in a play Still Life, but there were many other great plays where she has participated, namely Execution of Justice, Summer and Smoke and The Heidi Chronicles.

Apart from the stage, she played in many movies and TV shows. Her first film was comedy-drama film Garbo Talks in 1984, where she played Lady Capulet. Until 1990 she played in two more films: Matewan (1987) and Tiger Warsaw (1988) but none of them have made her famous, since the roles were secondary.

She finally came into prominence in 1990 when she received an invitation to play in a western “Dances with Wolves” directed, produced by, and starring Kevin Costner. The film gained 425 million dollars box office and Mcdonnell could consider this film as her breakthrough. For her role of Stands With A Fist she was nominated on three different awards for the best supporting actress (Academy Award, Chicago Film Critics Association Award and Golden Globe Award).

After her first significant success as supporting actress in “Dances with Wolves”, in 1992 she was nominated on Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for her leading role in Passion Fish, directed by John Sayles. She perfectly portrayed her character May-Alice Culhane in that film and it made more than five million dollars in box office. It were not as much as the film with Kevin Costner, but still was not a bad result for her first leading role.

Then Mary McDonnell appeared in Independence Day, where she played the First Lady, Donnie Darko as Rose, Scream 4 as Kate Roberts, Margin Call, for which she was nominated on Gotham Award and Phoenix Film Critics Society Award.

From 2003 to 2009, McDonnell has had a regular role in military science fiction TV series Battlestar Galactica, where she played President Laura Roslin. For this role, she won Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television. From 2009 to 2012, she has had another regular role, this time in the series The Closer.

Now she has a net worth about 10 million dollars, earning 125 thousand dollars per episode. She shares this fortune with her husband an actor Randle Mell. They married in 1984 that means they are in a marriage more than 30 years. They have two beautiful children, named Michael Mell and Olivia Mell. Mary with her family lives in Pacific Palisades, California, where they bought a house.