Lauren Helen Graham (born March 16, 1967) is an American actress and author. She is best known for her roles as Lorelai Gilmore on the television series Gilmore Girls (2000–2007), for which she received nominations for Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe and Satellite Awards, and as Sarah Braverman on the NBC television drama Parenthood (2010–2015).
Graham's film work include roles in Sweet November (2001), Bad Santa (2003), The Pacifier (2005), Because I Said So (2007), and Evan Almighty (2007). She published her debut novel with Ballantine Books in 2013, Someday, Someday, Maybe. In 2016, Graham reprised her role as Lorelai Gilmore on Netflix's reunion miniseries, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, and published a memoir, Talking as Fast as I Can.
Lauren Helen Graham was born on March 16, 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her mother, Donna Grant, was a fashion buyer, and her father, Lawrence Graham, is a candy industry lobbyist who has been president of the National Confectioners Association. Graham was raised in her father's Catholic faith (her maternal grandfather was a Baptist minister); she is of Irish, English, and Scottish Descent. When Graham's father worked for the Agency for International Development in Vietnam, Lauren lived for a few years in Japan (her mother also grew up there, as the daughter of a missionary). Graham was five years old when her parents divorced and she moved to Alexandria, Virginia with her father, who became a congressional staffer, while her mother left to pursue an artistic career, and lived in London until her death at age 61. Graham also spent a few of her childhood years from Southampton, NY. Graham has a half-sister and a half-brother from her father's second marriage and a British half-sister, Shade Grant, from her mother's second marriage, who works at a talent agency.