Bonnie Hunt Biography

BONNIE HUNT

Date of Birth: September 22, 1964

The sixth of seven kids, born into a good Catholic family in Chicago, Illinois, she attended Notre Dame High School for Girls where she first dreamed of becoming an actress.

She first ventured forth into acting classes at Chicago's world-famous Second City Improvisational Theater and eventually joined their touring company. In 1988, she landed the role of the waitress who dropped the toothpicks in Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman. She also married John Murphy, an investment banker she met on a blind date.

Not long after her marriage, she moved to Los Angeles to join the Second City troupe in that city, commuting back and forth to Chicago to be with her new husband. Second City didn't pan out due to a change in style and neither did her next venture in a sitcom for NBC called Grand, which was anything but. It was canned in 1990 and she joined the cast of Davis Rules playing Jonathon Winters' daughter.

Next she did a series of guest spots on Letterman and developed a personal friendship with the talk show host. In 1992, she played the Mom in Beethoven, the comedy about the lumbering Saint Bernard who turns a household upside down.

At that time, Hunt ventured into screenwriting and made the pilot for The Building, which she also co-produced with Letterman. Hunt made history as the first woman to write, produce and star in her own series, which spawned a slew of fans who ardently claim she is the greatest actress of our time. But when CBS demanded she replace some of the actors, which included friends from her Chicago days, Hunt stood firm and her show was cancelled.

Undaunted, she went on to play roles in Only You, Jumanji (with Robin Williams), Jerry Maguire (with Tom Cruise) and The Green Mile.

She was named Best Talk Show Guest in America by Entertainment Weekly and voiced Rosie in the animated tale A Bug's Life for Pixar Entertainment. She directed and wrote the screenplay for Return to Me (2000), starring David Duchovny.

Hunt then went on to create, write, direct and star in another sitcom, Life with Bonnie, which ran from 2002 to 2004. She also played Steve Martin's wife and the mother of 12 children in Cheaper By the Dozen (2003), which spawned a sequel, Cheaper By the Dozen 2 (2005). In 2010, she provided the voice of Dolly for Toy Story 3 and the voice for Flint in Monsters, Inc. 3D, which was actually a re-release of the original film that came out in 2001. More recently, she lent her voice to the animated films Zootopia (2016) and Cars 3 (2017).

Filmography:

Cars 3 (2017)
Zootopia (2016)
Monsters University (2013)
Monsters, Inc. 3D (2012) (voice)
Cars 2 (2011) (voice)
Toy Story 3 (2010) (voice)
Hurricane Season (2009)
The Alyson Stoner Project (2009)
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006)
Cars (2006) (voice)
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)
Loggerheads (2005)
Cheaper by the Dozen (2003)
Stolen Summer (2002)
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Return to Me (2000)
The Green Mile (1999)
Random Hearts (1999)
A Bug's Life (1998) (voice)
Kissing a Fool (1998)
Jerry Maguire (1996)
Getting Away with Murder (1996)
Jumanji (1995)
Now and Then (1995)
Only You (1994)
Beethoven's 2nd (1993)
Dave (1993)
Beethoven (1992)
Rain Main (1988)