Mary Megan Winningham, known professionally as Mare Winningham (; born May 16, 1959), is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards and two Tony Awards. An eight-time Emmy Award nominee, she won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Amber Waves in 1980 and George Wallace in 1998. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1995 film Georgia. Winningham's other film and TV roles include St. Elmo's Fire (1985), Miracle Mile (1988), Turner & Hooch (1989), The War (1994), Dandelion (2004), Swing Vote (2008), Brothers (2009), Mildred Pierce (2011), Hatfields & McCoys (2012) and appeared in American Horror Story for four seasons: Coven (2013), Freak Show (2014), Hotel (2015–16) and Cult (2017). She made her New York stage debut in the 2007 Off-Broadway musical 10 Million Miles, for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination. She made her Broadway debut in the 2013 revival of Picnic. In 2014, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the original Broadway production of Casa Valentina. She was cast as Cherry Lockhart for Seasons 1–2 and 4 as Cole's mother in the TV series The Affair. Early life Winningham was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in Northridge, California. She is the daughter of Marilyn Jean (née Maloney) and Sam Neal Winningham. She has three brothers and one sister. Her father was football coach, athletic director and later the chairman of the Department of Physical Education at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), and her mother was an English teacher and college counselor at Monroe High School and Grant High School. She credits her first interest in acting to seeing an interview with Kym Karath (who played Gretl in The Sound of Music) on Art Linkletter's television show House Party when she was five or six years old. Winningham attended Andasol Avenue Elementary School, where her favorite activities included drama and playing the guitar and drums. She took the extended drama option at Patrick Henry Junior High School and continued to study over her summer vacations at CSUN's Teenage Drama Workshop. It was at this time that she adopted the nickname "Mare". Her mother arranged for her to go to Chatsworth High School. In grade 12, Winningham starred