Robin Virginia Gayle Wright is an American actress.
The daughter of Gayle, an Independent Executive National Sales Director for Mary Kay cosmetics, and Fred Wright, a pharmaceutical executive. She was raised in San Diego, California.
Wright first became famous on television, playing Kelly Capwell on the soap opera Santa Barbara, which earned her three Daytime Emmy nominations. She shot to stardom after her roles as Buttercup in The Princess Bride and Jenny Curran in Forrest Gump, the latter role garnering her Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Supporting Actress.
She starred in the film adaptation of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders for which she received a Satellite Nomination for Best Actress in a Drama. She went on to co-star with her husband in the 1997 film She's So Lovely, for which she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. One of her most recent successes was a supporting role in the TV movie Empire Falls as Grace Roby, mother of Ed Harris's character Miles Roby. Wright received her third Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for this role.
From 1986 to 1988, Wright was married to actor Dane Witherspoon.
In 1989, Wright became involved with actor Sean Penn following his divorce from Madonna. Their daughter Dylan Frances Penn was born on April 13, 1991. Their son Hopper Jack Penn, born August 6, 1993, is named after two family friends, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. After the marriage in 1996, the relationship went through on-and-off again periods in the 2000s. Divorce plans and separation have been announced, beginning in December 2007, and again in April 2009, only to be withdrawn, and then again in May 2009. On August 12, 2009, Robin Wright Penn filed for divorce for good, declaring she has no plans to reconcile.