Mercedes J. Ruehl (born February 28, 1948) is an American theater, television, and film actor. Ruehl was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City, the daughter of Mercedes J., a school teacher, and Vincent Ruehl, an FBI agent. She was raised Catholic. Her father was of German and Irish descent and her mother was of Cuban and Irish ancestry. Ruehl attended College of New Rochelle and graduated in 1969. She is married to painter, David Geiser, with whom she adopted a son, Jake (born 1997). She had another son, Christopher, whom she placed in adoption in 1976; he later became Jake's godfather. Her brother, Peter Ruehl, moved to Australia, where he became a popular newspaper columnist. Ruehl began her career in regional theatre with the Denver Center Theatre Company, taking odd jobs between engagements. In the late 1970s, Ruehl began chalking up New York stage successes, notably in I'm Not Rappaport (1984). On the stage, she won the 1984 Obie Award for her performance in The Marriage of Bette and Boo and twenty years later, an Obie for Woman Before a Glass. She also received a 1991 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers.