Caroline Aaron (born August 7, 1957 ) is an American actress and producer.
Aaron was born Caroline Sidney Abady in Richmond, Virginia of Jewish heritage. Her mother, Nina Friedman Abady, was a civil rights activist. She attended American University in Washington, DC, studying performing arts.
Performed a one-woman, two-character play "Call Waiting" in 1994 and again in 2001. She later filmed it in 2004. The 87-minute film won the Best Comedy Jury Prize at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Earthy, plump-figured stage actress of Broadway ("Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," "Social Security" and "I Hate Hamlet") who appeared as a character actress on film and TV. She was a main ensemble player in several of Woody Allen films during the late 80s and 90s, essayed many of his typical Jewish relatives, neighbors and/or friends in traditional New York settings.
Her late mother, Nina Friedman Abady, was a Selma, Alabama civil rights activist who walked with Martin Luther King in the 60s. She had to endure cross-burnings on her Virginia front lawn. More tragically, the family suffered the loss of their husband and father at the age of 38.
Her older sister was Josephine R. Abady was a prominent artistic director of the Cleveland Playhouse (1988-1994) and Circle in the Square Theater (1994-1996). A noted stage producer, director and theater owner, Abady resisted employing her younger sister because they were related. This caused resentment and sibling friction for a period of time until Abady was diagnosed with breast cancer. Abady battled the disease for several years and died on May 25, 2002, at age 52. The Los Angeles-based Caroline returned to New York frequently to aid in her sister's illness. Aaron did appear under her sister's stage direction in "The Boys Next Door," co-starring David Strathairn and John Amos (I). Abady also cast Aaron in To Catch a Tiger, a 1994 AFI film which told the story of their mother's civil rights work. Caroline played their mother in the film and Abady's husband, Michael Krawitz, wrote the screenplay.
