Mercedes Ruehl

Acting

Mercedes Ruehl

Born 1948-02-28 · Queens, New York, USA

Mercedes J. Ruehl is an American screen, stage, and television actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, two Obie Awards, and two Outer Critics Circle Awards. Her most acclaimed film role was in The Fisher King; her performance in the film earned her the 1991 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as an American Comedy Award, a Boston Society of Film Critics Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, and a Golden Globe. Ruehl is known for her leading performance in the play Lost in Yonkers (1990) and supporting performance in the film The Fisher King (1991). Her other film credits include Big (1988), Married to the Mob (1988), Last Action Hero (1993), Roseanna's Grave (1997), and Hustlers (2019). She also played the mother of main character Vincent Chase in HBO's Entourage.

Acting credits

Hustlers poster
6.5

A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.

Hustlers

2019

Last Action Hero poster
6.5

After his father's death, a young boy finds solace in action movies featuring an indestructible cop. Given a magic ticket by a theater manager, he is transported into the film and teams up with the cop to stop a villain who escapes into the real world.

Last Action Hero

1993

Big poster
7.2

When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big, he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight, but he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups, including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.

Big

1988

The Warriors poster
7.7

Prominent gang leader Cyrus calls a meeting of New York's gangs to set aside their turf wars and take over the city. At the meeting, a rival leader kills Cyrus, but a Coney Island gang called the Warriors is wrongly blamed for Cyrus' death. Before you know it, the cops and every gangbanger in town is hot on the Warriors' trail.

The Warriors

1979

The Secret of My Success poster
6.5

Brantley Foster, a well-educated kid from Kansas, has always dreamed of making it big in New York City, but once there, he learns that jobs - and girls - are hard to get. When he visits his uncle, Howard Prescott, who runs a multi-million-dollar company, he is given a job in the mail room.

The Secret of My Success

1987

The Fisher King poster
7.3

Two troubled men face their terrible destinies and events of their past as they join together on a mission to find the Holy Grail and thus to save themselves.

The Fisher King

1991

Crimes and Misdemeanors poster
7.4

A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

1989

Gia poster
7.1

Gia Carangi meteorically rises to modeling fame in the late 1970s but becomes overconsumed by persistent loneliness and drug addiction.

Gia

1998

Married to the Mob poster
6.0

Angela de Marco is fed up with her gangster husband's line of work and wants no part of the crime world. When her husband is killed for having an affair with the mistress of mob boss Tony "The Tiger" Russo, Angela and her son depart for New York City to make a fresh start. Unfortunately, Tony has set his sights upon Angela -- and so has an undercover FBI agent looking to use her to bust Tony.

Married to the Mob

1988

Heartburn poster
6.0

She's a magazine writer who gives up her career for love and family. He's a playboy newspaper columnist who can't quite give up his old tricks. And if that combination doesn't give a relationship heartburn, nothing will.

Heartburn

1986

Radio Days poster
7.0

The Narrator tells us how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. In the New York City of the late 1930s to the New Year's Eve 1944, this coming-of-age tale mixes the narrator's experiences with contemporary anecdotes and urban legends of the radio stars.

Radio Days

1987

The Minus Man poster
5.5

When the quiet and amiable Vann Siegert drifts into town, no one suspects the evil that lies beneath the surface. Despite his easy charm, Vann is merely a reflection of what those he encounters want him to be. Soon, as locals start to disappear, it becomes clear that an eerie subtraction is at work in the sleepy hamlet.

The Minus Man

1999

Another You poster
5.4

George has been in a mental hospital for 3 years and is finally ready to go out into the real world again. Eddie Dash, a dedicated con-man, is supposed to keep him out of trouble, but when people begin to recognise George as a missing millionaire, Eddie wants to take advantage of the situation.

Another You

1991

84 Charing Cross Road poster
7.2

When a humorous script-reader in her New York apartment sees an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature for a bookstore in London that does mail order, she begins a very special correspondence and friendship with Frank Doel, the bookseller who works at Marks & Co., 84 Charing Cross Road.

84 Charing Cross Road

1987

Disclosure poster
7.8

An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.

Disclosure

2020

Loving Leah poster
6.9

When Leah's husband Benjamin dies suddenly, Benjamin's brother Jake is stunned to learn he is expected to marry the childless Leah to carry on his brother's name. Jake suggests to Leah that they get married and maintain a secretly platonic relationship. The harder they try to disguise their "pretend" marriage, the more their appreciation for each other's worlds grow, and out of understanding, a real love develops.

Loving Leah

2009

More Dogs Than Bones poster
4.9

A series of mishaps and misfortunes over $1 million in cash leads to murder, mayhem and greed.

More Dogs Than Bones

2000

Indictment: The McMartin Trial poster
6.9

The McMartin family's lives are turned upside down when they are accused of serious child molestation. The family run a school for infants. An unqualified child cruelty "expert" videotapes the children describing outrageous stories of abuse. One of the most expensive and long running trials in US legal history, exposes the lack of evidence and unprofessional attitudes of the finger pointers which kept one of the accused in jail for over 5 years without bail.

Indictment: The McMartin Trial

1995

Roseanna's Grave poster
6.6

Roseanna is dying of a heart condition, and all she wants is to be buried next to her daughter, in a cemetery that is getting full fast. The cemetery can't expand because Capestro, the man who owns the land next to the cemetery, won't sell. While Marcello is doing good deeds to make sure no one dies, Roseanna thinks of Marcello's future.

Roseanna's Grave

1997

Subway Stories poster
5.6

An anthology of 10 stories depicting real-life incidents of subway riders in New York City, which range from compassion and love to violence and loss.

Subway Stories

1997

Crazy People poster
5.9

A bitter ad executive, who has reached his breaking point, finds himself in a mental institution, where his career actually begins to thrive with the help of the hospital's patients.

Crazy People

1990

All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story poster
4.8

A teacher is arrested and jailed for raping her 13-year-old student, and twice gives birth to his child.

All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story

2000

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands poster
6.8

After the death of her handsome but good-for-nothing husband Vadinho, Flor, a widow, marries Dr. Teodoro, a respectable gentleman. Hilarity ensues when Vadinho's spirit returns into her life.

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

1976

Chu and Blossom poster
4.0

A militant performance-artist and a tall Korean foreign-exchange student become trapped in a small Southern town.

Chu and Blossom

2014