Helen Elizabeth Hunt (born June 15, 1963) is an American Emmy-, Golden Globe-, and Academy Award-winning actress & director.
Hunt was born in Culver City, California, the daughter of Jane Elizabeth, a photographer, and Gordon Hunt, a film director and acting coach. Her uncle, Peter H. Hunt, is also a director, and her maternal grandmother, Dorothy Fries was a voice coach.
Hunt is of Jewish and Methodist background. Hunt spent part of her childhood in New York City and later attended the University of California at Los Angeles.
Hunt began working in the 1970s as a child actress. Her early roles included an appearance as Murray Slaughter's daughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, alongside Lindsay Wagner in an episode of The Bionic Woman, and a regular role in the television series The Swiss Family Robinson.
In the 1990s, after the lead female role in the short-lived My Life and Times, Hunt became well-known to television audiences in Mad About You, winning Emmy Awards for her performance in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999. Hunt has also had a successful film career, with roles in movies such as Cast Away and the 1996 blockbuster Twister.
In 1998 Hunt won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Carol Connelly, a waitress and single mother who finds herself falling in love with Melvin Udall, an obsessive-compulsive romance novelist played by Jack Nicholson in the movie As Good as It Gets.
She currently owns a production company with Connie Tavel, Hunt/Tavel Productions under Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Hunt was married to actor Hank Azaria from 1999 until 2000. Then she briefly dated fellow actor Kevin Spacey in 2000. She has been in a relationship with Matthew Carnahan since 2001 and they have a daughter, Makena Lei Gordon Carnahan, born in 2004.