Frances McDormand

Some Lesser Known Facts About Frances McDormand

• Does Frances McDormand smoke?: Not Known

• Does Frances McDormand drink alcohol?: Yes 

• When she was 1-year-old, she was adopted by a pastor Vernon W. McDormand and his wife Noreen.

• Her adoptive parents were from Canada.

• As part of the religious calling, her family would move throughout the United States.

• Frances’s biological mother might have been a parishioner in the McDormands’ parish.

• Owing to her parents’ religious calling, Frances’ youth was spent in a succession of small Bible-Belt towns.

• She has nine cats in her family.

• Talking about her biological mother, Frances once said she was raised white trash. She said, “My parents were not white trash. My birth mother was white trash.”

• Frances McDormand’s marriage with Joel Coen is considered one of Hollywood’s most successful marriages.

• Her husband Joel Coen, with his brother, makes up the famous Coen Brothers directing duo.

• She met Joel Coen in 1983 when she auditioned for the Coen brothers’ debut feature Blood Simple. 

• Coen Brothers cast her in many of their movies, most famously in their midwestern crime caper, Fargo. She also won an Academy Award for the portrayal of a pregnant police chief Marge in the film. 

• In 1995, Frances McDormand and Joel Coen adopted their son, Pedro from Paraguay. Pedro was 6-month-old at the time.

• At one point, Frances McDormand was considering writing a book on adoption.

• Once she admitted that her iconic portrayal of Marge in Fargo was loosely based on her sister, Dorothy.

• In 2011, her father, Vernon McDormand died at the age of 88.

• In 2014, her brother, Kenneth McDormand, died at the age of 70.

• In 2018, she won an Academy Award for Best Actress for the second time, this time for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.