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Dana Robins Ivey (born August 14, 1941) is an American character actress. Ivey was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the daughter of Mary Nell Ivey Santacroce (née McKoin), a teacher, speech therapist and actress who appeared in productions of Driving Miss Daisy and taught at Georgia State University, and Hugh Daugherty Ivey, a physicist and professor who taught at Georgia Tech and later worked at the Atomic Energy Commission. Her parents later divorced. She has a younger brother, John, and a half-brother, Eric Santacroce, from her mother`s re-marriage to Dante Santacroce. She received her undergraduate degree at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and earned a Fulbright grant to study drama at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She received an Honorary Doctorate (Humane Letters) from Rollins College in February 2008.

Ivey appeared in numerous American and Canadian stage productions before making New York City her home in the late 1970s. She made her Broadway debut playing two small roles in a 1981 production of Macbeth; the following year she was cast in a major supporting role in a revival of Noel Coward`s Present Laughter, for which she received the Clarence Derwent Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play. She was nominated for two Tony Awards in the same season (1984) - as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Stephen Sondheim`s Sunday in the Park with George and Best Featured Actress in a Play for a revival of Heartbreak House - a feat repeated by only two other actresses, Amanda Plummer and Kate Burton. Ivey`s performances in Driving Miss Daisy (in the title role) and Quartermaine`s Terms both earned her an Obie Award. Ivey`s first major screen appearance was in Steven Spielberg`s adaptation of Alice Walker`s The Color Purple in 1985. Among her other film credits are Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Sabrina, Postcards from the Edge, and The Adventures of Huck Finn. In 1978, Ivey made her television debut in the daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow. Her television credits include guest appearances on Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order, Oz, The Practice, Sex and the City, and Monk. Ivey performed in the New York premiere of The Savannah Disputation by Evan Smith at Playwrights Horizons. The comedy costarred Marylouise Burke, Reed Birney, and Kellie Overbey. The production ran from February 6, 2009 through March 15, 2009.