A graduate of Barnard College, Graham went on to earn a master of fine arts degree in acting from Southern Methodist University in 1992. After a stint in Chicago, she moved to New York City. Graham landed some commercials and worked other jobs to make ends meet. In 1995, she moved to Los Angeles and started her television career with a recurring role on the first season of Caroline in the City, starring Lea Thompson. She played the mercilessly upbeat Shelly, girlfriend to one of the lead characters.
Over the next few years, Graham also appeared in several episodes of Law & Order (1997) and NewsRadio (1997). Her first attempts at series television, however, were met with failure. Good Company (1996), Townies (1996), Conrad Bloom (1998), and M.Y.O.B. (2000) all barely made out of the starting gate before they were taken off the air. The cancelation of the sitcom M.Y.O.B., in which Graham starred as an assistant principal suddenly responsible for a niece she never knew about, turned out to be good news. It left her free to take on a new series called Gilmore Girls in 2000.
Debuting in the fall of 2000, Gilmore Girls followed the lives of single mother Lorelai Gilmore (played by Graham) and her daughter Rory (played by Alexis Bledel). The two were more like sisters than the traditional mother-daughter dynamic, in part because Lorelai had been a teenage mother.
Some of the show's dramatic moments have come from Lorelai's rollercoaster love life, including her relationships with Rory's father, and her strained relationship with her parents. Graham received numerous accolades for her work on the series, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Besides her work on Gilmore Girls, Lauren Graham has explored other acting opportunities. She appeared in the 2003 film Bad Santa opposite Billy Bob Thornton, 2005's The Pacifier with Vin Diesel, and 2007's Because I Told You So with Diane Keaton. Graham also appeared in the 2007 film Evan Almighty, a sequel to the divine hit comedy Bruce Almighty (2003). In 2010, Graham returned to series television in the role of Sarah Braverman on the family drama Parenthood.
Lauren Graham has also been working behind the camera. She established Good Game Entertainment, her own production company. According to a report in the trade publication Daily Variety, the company is producing a show called Objects of Desire, a behind-the-scenes look at an auction house. Other programs are also in the works.
