- Born
- Birth nameHolland Virginia Taylor
- Nickname
- Penny Taylor
- Height5′ 4″ (1.63 m)
- Holland Taylor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the third-born (and last) daughter of her mother, Virginia (Davis), a painter, and the only child of her father, C. Tracy Taylor, an attorney. She spent her teen years in nearby Allentown, PA, where Holland got the nickname, "Penny Taylor" because of her coppery hair color. Holland attended Quaker schools, then majored in drama at Bennington College. At the age of 22 Holland moved to New York with the desire to become a "great big Broadway star." After fifteen years of "disappointments and near misses" in New York and California, Holland was cast as Ruth Dunbar in the sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980) with Tom Hanks. It was Holland's "breakout" role and it led to many other TV and film offers including the movie Romancing the Stone (1984) as Kathleen Turner's book publisher and friend. Holland had hesitated to accept the role but her acting coach and mentor Stella Adler encouraged her not to be so "stage minded." In 1992 Holland was still living in Greenwich Village, New York and traveling back and forth between a rented apartment in Hollywood and New York in order to work on both coasts. Holland has said her first love was the theater but the work for her in TV and films was better. However, by 1992, Holland said she was dealing with traveling back and forth "less and less well". Over the next few years, Holland moved to California full-time. In the last couple of years, she gave up her apartment in West Hollywood for her own home in the Hollywood Hills. Holland won an Emmy in 1999 for her work in The Practice (1997).- IMDb Mini Biography By: L.C.P.
- ChildrenNo Children
- ParentsVirginia Taylor (Davis)C. Tracy Taylor
- RelativesSibling(Sibling)Brad Anderson(Niece or Nephew)
- Often plays classy or ritzy characters
- Wrote and starred in her own one-woman show about the late Texas Governor Ann Richards, "Ann" and performed it on Broadway in 2013.
- Is in a relationship with Sarah Paulson since early 2015.
- Has studied Jazz and Tap dancing and also ballet at the Joffrey (beginning level as of 1978). She has said she is a "once and always student" of acting coach Stella Adler.
- Loves France and has taken French classes to learn the language. She has also taken lessons in classical French cooking.
- August 2005 - Received her Master degree in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica.
- "I'm just cutting a swath of bitchiness through the world!." (on her propensity for playing cantankerous women)
- "There's a very big age difference between us which I'm sure shocks a lot of people, and it startles me. But as they say, 'If she dies, she dies.'" [Taylor in a November 2015 radio interview with WNYC, joking about her relationship with Sarah Paulson--who is 31 years her junior]
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