This off-beat, gap-toothed blonde actress began her career in waifish, juvenile roles and later graduated to droll oddball character parts. Amy Wright was born and raised in the Midwest and worked as a schoolteacher before heading to NYC in the mid-1970s to pursue an acting career. Shortly after her arrival, Wright joined Rip Torn's Sanctuary Theater where she appeared in "Agnes and Joan". Roles in stock and regional theater followed before she garnered attention for her turn in a revival of Lanford Wilson's "The Rimers of Eldrich" in 1976. Two years later, she had the featured role of 13-year-old Shirley Tally in Wilson's acclaimed "Fifth of July", making her Broadway debut in the part in 1980. Wright continued to make stage appearances into the 90s, most notably as a devotee of psychologist Melanie Klein (played by Uta Hagen) in the Off-Broadway success "Mrs. Klein" (1995-96).
Wright debuted in Martha Coolidge's quasi-documentary "Not a Pretty Picture" (1977) and had small roles in "The Deer Hunter" (1978) and "Breaking Away" (1979) before making an impression as Harry Dean Stanton's teenage daughter in John Huston's "Wise Blood" (also 1979). She offered a comic turn as the calm, collected groupie who slips into Woody Allen's bed in "Stardust Memories" (1980) and was fine as William Hurt's spinster sister in "The Accidental Tourist" (1988). More recently, she was seen as one of the townsfolk in the unintentionally hilarious remake of "The Scarlet Letter" and as Aunt Polly in Disney's "Tom and Huck" (both 1995).