<P> In the early 1990s, she returned to film for 1994's all - star Wyatt Earp and the family drama The War, both starring Kevin Costner. 1995 brought Georgia, a thoughtful character study of two sisters (Winningham and Jennifer Jason Leigh), which earned Winningham Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award nominations . Two years later, she starred opposite Gary Sinise in George Wallace, for which she garnered her first Golden Globe Award nomination and won an Emmy Award . </P> <P> She made acclaimed appearances on the series ER and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as appearances in the 2001 television project Sally Hemmings opposite Sam Neill and the short - lived David E. Kelley series The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire . Also in 2001, she appeared in the made - for - TV movie Snap Decision with Felicity Huffman . She also appeared in the independent film Dandelion, which was a staple of film festivals worldwide between 2003 and 2004 and had a limited American release in October 2005 . </P> <P> In 2006, she landed the role of Susan Grey on the ABC drama Grey's Anatomy where she played the stepmother of one of the main characters, Dr. Meredith Grey . Her character was killed off in May 2007 . In 2006, Winningham voiced the audio version of Stephen King's Lisey's Story . In 2007, she voiced Alice Hoffman's Skylight Confessions . In 2010, Winningham starred in an episode of Cold Case as main character Lilly Rush's stepmother, Celeste Cooper . In 2011 she appeared in the fourth episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day as character Ellis Hartley Monroe . She also starred in miniseries Mildred Pierce and Hatfields & McCoys and garnered another two Emmy nominations . In 2012, she appeared Off - Broadway as Beth, the mother in an intellectual, though dysfunctional, British family, in the award - winning comic - drama Tribes by Nina Raine . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification . Please help by adding reliable sources . Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful . (June 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table>

Who plays susan grey on grey's anatomy