“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” Andy Warhol once said (or did he?)—but actor and politician Cynthia Nixon is proof that some people’s window of fame just seems to go on and on (and rightfully so!). The And Just Like That… star—the daughter of a radio journalist father and actor mother—performed in film and onstage throughout her childhood and young adulthood, making her Broadway debut as Dinah Lord in a 1980 production of The Philadelphia Story before simultaneously starring in two hit Broadway plays directed by Mike Nichols while a freshman at Barnard College.
Later, Nixon received three Emmy nominations for playing the outspoken, sardonic lawyer Miranda Hobbes on Sex and the City. Although she’s since returned to the small screen to reprise that role in And Just Like That…—as well as starring in Julian Fellowes’s hit HBO series The Gilded Age—she’s also carved out a niche for herself in progressive New York politics: Nixon entered the gubernatorial race in 2018 with a campaign focused on addressing income inequality, fighting climate change, and establishing universal health care. (Though she ultimately lost the Democratic primary to Andrew Cuomo, Nixon has remained a steadfast advocate for some of New York’s most vulnerable populations.)
Here, in honor of Nixon’s 59th birthday, have a look at some adorable old photos from her sparkling early career.
.jpg)
Photo: Getty Images1/151979
Sporting a jaunty red beret in a promotional image for “The Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid,” an ABC Afterschool Special co-starring Butterfly McQueen (Prissy in Gone with the Wind!).
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection2/151980
Posing with the cast of Little Darlings, a teen com-dram starring Tatum O’Neal (front row, far left) and Kristy McNichol (just right of Nixon).
.jpg)
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection3/151980
With Douglass Watson (as Seth Lord) and Meg Mundy (as Margaret Lord) in Lincoln Center Theater’s 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story. Nixon played Dinah, the mouthy younger sister to Blythe Danner’s Tracy.
Photo: Getty Images4/151982
With Maia Danziger and Sarah Jessica Parker in the TV movie My Body, My Child. When The Cut posted this image to Instagram in 2021, Nixon provided some very sweet background: “Good morning! @sarahjessicaparker has been one of my favorite acting partners for more than 40 years! We are here at 13 and 14 playing Vanessa Redgrave’s daughters in a TV movie called My Body My Child, but we met even earlier recording Little House in the Big Woods on vinyl! (She was Laura, I was Mary) Anyone out there have a copy of the record or a photo of the recording session? I wish I did!”
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection5/151982
With Jeff Daniels, Richard Thomas, Joyce Rehling Christopher, and Helen Stenborg in an American Playhouse adaptation of Lanford Wilson’s Fifth of July.
Photo: Getty Images6/151983
In another Afterschool Special, “It’s No Crush, I’m in Love,” in which Nixon played a teenager infatuated with her English teacher (Mark LaMura).
Photo: Getty Images7/151984
At the Tavern on the Green after-party for the original Broadway production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, directed by Mike Nichols. Just 17 at the time, Nixon appeared in the show alongside Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Peter Gallgher, Joanna Gleason, and her future The Gilded Age co-star Christine Baranski.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection8/15c. 1984
With members of the original Broadway cast of David Rabe’s Hurlyburly: Ron Silver, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Judith Ivey, Harvey Keitel, and Jerry Stiller. This production, too, was directed by Mike Nichols, and for a time, Nixon was doing both it and The Real Thing simultaneously.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection9/151986
Posing with John Lithgow and Christopher Collet, her co-stars in the sci-fi-thriller The Manhattan Project.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection10/151988
In a production of Romeo and Juliet with Milo O’Shea and Peter MacNicol at the Public Theater.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection11/151992
In the television short “Kiss-Kiss, Dahlings!” with Blythe Danner and Nancy Marchand.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection12/151994
As Gilbertine, the nanny in Baby’s Day Out.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection13/15c. 1998
In what is surely a promotional image for an early season of Sex and the City, which debuted on HBO in 1998.
Photo: Getty Images14/151999
In pretty jewel tones at the 1999 Emmys, where SATC had two nominations (outstanding comedy series and outstanding lead actress in a comedy, for Sarah Jessica Parker). Nixon’s own first nomination, for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy, would come in 2002—though she wouldn’t win until 2004.
Photo: Getty Images15/152000
Showing a little midriff at the Second Annual Directors Guild of America Honors.
