Born Jane Quigley in Boston, MA, educated at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Edinburgh, she has become a much-lauded stage performer whose relatively few screen appearances have yielded four Oscar nominations. Alexander made her film debut in 1970, reprising her Tony Award-winning performance as prize fighter Jack Johnson's white mistress in THE GREAT WHITE HOPE. Often cast as forthright, plain-Jane characters, Alexander is noted for the seemingly effortless simplicity and unmannered honesty of her work. Although always dependable and sympathetic, she was exceptional as the mother in the understated, but harrowing, nuclear holocaust drama TESTAMENT (1983) and affecting as Eleanor Roosevelt in the TV films ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN (1976) and ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN: THE WHITE HOUSE YEARS (1977). Alexander enjoyed a popular stage triumph as one of the siblings in Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosenzweig (1992-93) and, shortly after leaving the cast, she accepted President Bill Clinton's appointment to head the National Endowment for the Arts. Working mostly in television from the mid-1980s, her recent film roles include THE CIDER HOUSE RULES (1999), SUNSHINE STATE and THE RING (both 2002), and FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS (2006).    Nominated for Actress 1970: THE GREAT WHITE HOPE    Nominated for Supporting Actress 1976: ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN    Nominated for Supporting Actress 1979: KRAMER vs. KRAMER    Nominated for Actress 1983: TESTAMENT 4 nominations