You’ve seen her in a wide range of television shows since the 1990s, often in quirky shows. While the world would love to label celebrities as straight or gay or even bisexual, Sarah Paulson’s refusal to limit her personal life by such labels in 2016 was groundbreaking. She has never backed down from that stance, demonstrating that making your own way may not mean giving up your career.
Paulson was born Sarah Catharine Paulson on December 17, 1974 in Tampa, Florida, where she lived until her parents, Catharine Gordon (née Dolcater), an aspiring writer, and Douglas Lyle Paulson II, a manufacturing executive, divorced five years later. She and her mother moved to Maine, then settled in New York City, though Paulson visited her father back in Florida and spent the summers there.
Paulson attended the American Academy of Dramatic Artsand the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan. She began acting right out of high school, with guest spots on television shows like Law & Order and in off-Broadway shows. After a few years, her jobs included big-screen movies.
While Paulson’s acting has cut across several genres, she is most famous for horror and psychological thrillers. She has won awards for her work on different seasons of American Horror Story. She has also been part of the cast of the award-winning films Mud (2012) and 12 Years a Slave(2013). Yet it was her dramatic role as Marcia Clark in the 2016 limited series The People v. O.J.Simpson: American Crime Story that won her the most acclaim. In 2016 she earned the TCA Award, the OFTA Television Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2017, she received the Golden Globe and the Dorian Award from GALECA: The Society of LBGTQ Entertainment Critics. Finally, her performance as Marcia Clark was given the Decade Award for TV Movie/Mini Actress by the Gold Derby TV Awards.
Paulson uses her social media accounts like Twitter to urge followers to get out the vote, support charities, and invigorate progressive issues, as well as to promote her entertainment projects. Sometimes, the projects she picks as an actor deal with the social and political issues she cares about; sometimes they don’t. Her IMDb list is impressive; Paulson has also tried her hand at directing and producing, but primarily she is an actor on television, in movies, and even on stage.
In 2009, Paulson’s personal life got a little attention from the media when her five-year relationship with actor Cherry Jones ended. Prior to and immediately after that, Paulson had been known to date men, and in 2013 she was engaged to Tracy Letts, a male actor and playwright. But it was her relationship with actor Holland Taylor that really got the paparazzi going, because not only was Taylor another woman, she is three decades older than Paulson. The couple is still together at the end of 2020, and while they both work for and support progressive issues, they do not share a great deal about their private lives, even though they won a Love is Great award at the 2019 QueertyAwards.
It is common to ignore or denigrate bisexual people in contemporary America. Often bisexuals are simply told they are too scared to come out or too selfish to settle down. Some people might see Paulson’s refusal to label her sexuality as a problem, but couldn’t it also be a model for rejecting society’s claim over our sexual identities and thus its attempt to dictate what our private lives should look like? It takes courage to reject society at such a fundamental level and to stand up for yourself no matter your career. Here’s hoping that Paulson continues to bring us joy on screen and stage, promote rights for all, and maintain her private life.
