Bonnie Blair Brown (born April 23, 1946) is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high-profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, which ran from 1987 to 1991. Brown is well known for her recent role as Nina Sharp in the television series Fringe, broadcast on Fox.
Brown was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Elizabeth Ann (née Blair), a teacher, and Milton Henry Brown, a U.S. intelligence agent. She graduated from The Madeira School in McLean, Virginia, before going on to pursue acting at the National Theatre School of Canada, graduating in 1969. She gained notice as a participating actor at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and spent several years honing her work on the stage.
Brown had a relationship with actor Richard Jordan, whom she met while filming the miniseries Captains and the Kings in 1976. The couple lived together from 1976 to 1985; they had one son, Robert Anson Jordan III, born in 1983.
The Blair–Brown deal (or Granita Pact) was an alleged gentlemen's agreement struck between Shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair and Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown in May 1994. It is widely believed that the two met in the now-defunct restaurant Granita in Islington, London, following the death of Labour Leader John Smith on 12 May, and that Brown agreed, in return for certain promises, to not stand for the leadership in order to allow Blair a better chance of victory. The existence of any deal was denied for many years by both Blair and Brown.
It was widely believed that Gordon Brown agreed not to stand in the 1994 Labour leadership election in order to allow Tony Blair an easy victory. In return, Brown would be granted wide powers over domestic policy in any Blair Government; Blair would go on to lead Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. It was also widely believed that Blair agreed, if he was appointed Prime Minister, to stay in the job for only two terms and then resign in Brown's favour.