Personal life

Erbe was born the oldest of three children in Newton, Massachusetts. Her mother, Elisabeth Magnarelli, was a vice president of a Boston management firm, and her father, Dr. Richard Erbe, is an internist subspecialized as a medical geneticist.

Kathryn Erbe graduated from New York University in 1989. She was formerly married to actor Terry Kinney; they have two children: daughter Maeve (born 1995) and son Carson (born 2003). Erbe currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Career

While an undergraduate student at NYU, Erbe was cast as Lynn Redgrave's daughter on the sitcom Chicken Soup. Following the series, she became a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and has starred in many of their productions, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Curse of the Starving Class, My Thing of Love, and The Grapes of Wrath, which ran for six months and won the 1990 Tony Award for Best Play. Erbe earned a Tony Award nomination in 1991 for her portrayal of Mary in Speed of Darkness, written by Steve Tesich. She has also performed in many world premiere productions by playwrights such as Tom Donaghy and Alex Gersten.

In 1994 she sang backup vocals in the song "Riding Towards Albany" with fellow Steppenwolf Theatre actor Skipp Sudduth for his band Minus Ted.

Erbe has starred in several films, including What About Bob?, Stir of Echoes and the independent films Dream with the Fishes, Love from Ground Zero and Entropy. She played the second wife of an ex-convict opposite David Caruso in the crime thriller Kiss of Death.

She also portrayed Shirley Bellinger on the HBO series Oz to critical acclaim, including an episode featuring her full frontal nudity. She made a guest appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1997.

Since 2001, she has starred as Detective Alex Eames on the NBC/USA Network series Law & Order: Criminal Intent alongside Vincent D'Onofrio.