JoBeth Williams

Margaret JoBeth Williams (born December 6, 1948) is an American actress and television director. Her directorial debut with the 1994 short film On Hope earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. In 2009 she began serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation; she is President Emeritus of the foundation.

JoBeth Williams
Williams at the SAG Foundation brunch in January 2007
Born	Margaret JoBeth Williams December 6, 1948 Houston, Texas, U.S.
Alma mater	Pembroke College in Brown University
Occupation	Actress, television director
Years active	1974–present
Spouse(s)	John Pasquin ​ (m. 1982)​
Children	2

Williams rose to prominence appearing in such films as Stir Crazy (1980), Poltergeist (1982), The Big Chill (1983), The Day After (1983), Teachers (1984), and Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986). A three-time Emmy Award nominee, she was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her work in the TV movie Adam (1983) and the TV miniseries Baby M (1988). Her third nomination was for her guest role in the sitcom Frasier (1993–94). She also starred in the TV series The Client (1995–96) and had recurring roles in the TV series Dexter (2007) and Private Practice (2009–11).

Early life

Williams was born in Houston, Texas, and is the daughter of Frances Faye (née Adams), a dietitian, and Fredric Roger Williams, an opera singer and manager of a wire and cable company.[1] Williams grew up in the South Park neighborhood of Houston,[2] and attended Jones High School, from which she graduated in 1966.[3]

She graduated from Pembroke College in Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1970, intending to become a child psychologist. Instead, she turned to theater, training with Jim Barnhill and John Emigh, as well as at the Trinity Repertory Company, taking voice lessons to neutralize her Texan accent. Then she moved to New York City and began to appear in television series in the mid-1970s.

Career

Early career

Williams's first television role was on the Boston-produced first-run syndicated children's television series Jabberwocky, which debuted in 1972. Her character was named JoBeth. She joined the Jabberwocky cast in season two, replacing the original hostess, Joanne Sopko.[4] The series ran until 1978. She was a regular on two soap operas, playing Carrie Wheeler on Somerset and Brandy Shelloe on Guiding Light. Williams's feature-film debut came in 1979's Kramer vs. Kramer as a girlfriend of Dustin Hoffman's character, memorably quizzed by his son after being discovered walking nude to the bathroom.[4]

Motion pictures

Williams is perhaps most recognized for her roles in Stir Crazy (1980), with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and Poltergeist (1982), as suburban housewife Diane Freeling, a character she reprised in a sequel, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, 1986).[4] A year later, she was part of the ensemble comedy-drama The Big Chill (1983). This led to her only major starring role in a studio feature film, American Dreamer (1984), opposite Tom Conti. High-profile co-starring roles in Teachers (1984) with Nick Nolte, Desert Bloom (1986) with Jon Voight, Memories of Me with Billy Crystal (1988), and Blake Edwards's Switch (1991) with Ellen Barkin followed.

She is also known for starring opposite Kris Kristofferson in Oscar-winning director Franklin J. Schaffner's final film, the Vietnam POW drama Welcome Home (1989). In 1992, she re-teamed with The Big Chill director Lawrence Kasdan to portray Bessie Earp in Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner, and starred as Crazy Diane/Sane Diane, a schizophrenic shut-in, in the dark independent comedy, Me Myself & I.

She also co-starred with Ed O'Neill in the John Hughes-written comedy Dutch (1991), and starred in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) as the police detective/love interest of Sylvester Stallone's character. In 1995, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her 1994 live-action short On Hope, starring Annette O'Toole; the film was Williams's directorial debut. In 1997, she played a domineering lesbian in the independent comedy Little City with Jon Bon Jovi, and an hysterical publishing editor in Just Write with Jeremy Piven. In 2005, she appeared in the Drew Barrymore-Jimmy Fallon baseball comedy Fever Pitch.

In October 2011, she appeared with Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, Rashida Jones, and Jack Black in the bird-watching comedy The Big Year for Twentieth Century Fox.

Television work

Williams has also gained critical acclaim for a number of performances in notable television movies, including the nuclear holocaust film The Day After (1983), Murder Ordained (1987), as Lois Burnham Wilson in My Name is Bill W. (1989), and the critically acclaimed Masterpiece Theatre presentation of The Ponder Heart (2003) for director Martha Coolidge.[5]

She earned Emmy nominations for starring as real-life characters Revé Walsh (the wife of John Walsh) in the film Adam (1983) and Mary Beth Whitehead in Baby M (1988). In 1993, she anchored the improvised Showtime dramedy Chantilly Lace with Helen Slater and Martha Plimpton.

She also had an Emmy-nominated guest-starring role on Frasier[4] and played Reggie Love in the 1995–1996 CBS series The Client (adapted from the 1994 film of the same title), which lasted only 21 episodes, but gained a wider audience when it was rebroadcast in reruns on the TNT Network.[6]

Williams appeared on a 2006 episode of 24 as Christopher Henderson (Peter Weller)'s wife, Miriam, who literally takes a (nonfatal) bullet for her husband.

She appeared in one episode of the 1998 TV miniseries From the Earth to the Moon as Marge Slayton, the wife of Deke Slayton. The episode is part 11 of the series and titled "The Original Wives Club".

In 1999, Williams teamed with John Larroquette and Julie Benz for the CBS network situation comedy Payne. The show, which was the American television version of the hit British comedy Fawlty Towers, lasted just 10 episodes.

In 2007, she joined Dexter for a four-episode arc as the serial killer's future mother-in-law, whose daughter was also played by Benz. Also, she appeared in a memorable 2009 Criminal Minds listed as Special Guest Star in the episode "Empty Planet" as Professor Ursula Kent, who helps the BAU with a bomb threat in Seattle.

She has played the recurring role of Bizzy Forbes-Montgomery, mother of Kate Walsh's Addison, on ABC's Private Practice since 2009.

In 2014, she appeared in the CBS science-fiction drama Extant, as Leigh Kern (season one, episode seven).

Personal life

She is married to TV and film director John Pasquin, with whom she worked on Jungle 2 Jungle; they have two sons.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1979	Kramer vs. Kramer	Phyllis Bernard
1980	Stir Crazy	Meredith
1980	The Dogs of War	Jessie Shannon
1982	Poltergeist	Diane Freeling
1982	Endangered Species	Harriet Purdue
1983	The Big Chill	Karen Bowens
1984	Teachers	Lisa Hammond
1984	American Dreamer	Cathy Palmer / Rebecca Ryan
1986	Desert Bloom	Lily Chismore
1986	Poltergeist II: The Other Side	Diane Freeling
1988	Memories of Me	Lisa
1989	Welcome Home	Sarah
1991	Switch	Margo Brofman
1991	Dutch	Natalie Standish
1992	Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot	Lt. Gwen Harper
1992	Me Myself & I	Diane
1994	Wyatt Earp	Bessie Earp
1997	Jungle 2 Jungle	Dr. Patricia Cromwell
1997	Just Write	Sidney Stone
1997	Little City	Anne
1997	When Danger Follows You Home	Anne Werden
2002	The Rose Technique	Dr. Lillian Rose
2005	Fever Pitch	Maureen Meeks
2005	Crazylove	Mrs. Mayer
2007	In the Land of Women	Agnes Webb
2009	Timer	Marion Depaul
2011	The Big Year	Edith Preissler
2016	Within	Rosemary Fletcher
2017	Barracuda	Patricia
2017	What the Night Can Do	Bettye Sue Dryer
2018	Alex & the List	Mrs. Stern
2019	Sgt. Will Gardner	Sherry

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974	Great Performances	Constance Wilde	"Feasting with Panthers"
1974	Jabberwocky	JoBeth	TV series
1976	Somerset	Carrie Wheeler	"Another World: Somerset", "31 December 1976"
1977–1981	Guiding Light	Brandy Schlooe	Recurring role
1978	The World Beyond	Marian Faber	TV film
1980	Fun and Games	Laura Weston	TV film
1980	The White Shadow	Paula Harris	"Reunion: Parts 1 & 2"
1981	The Big Black Pill	Tiffany Farrenpour	TV film
1983	Adam	Reve Walsh	TV film
1983	The Day After	Nancy Bauer	TV film
1985	Kids Don't Tell	Claudia Ryan	TV film
1986	Adam: His Song Continues	Reve Walsh	TV film
1987	Murder Ordained	Lorna Anderson	TV film
1989	My Name Is Bill W.	Lois 'Lo' Wilson	TV film
1990	Child in the Night	Dr. Hollis	TV film
1990	Timeless Tales from Hallmark	Bettina (voice)	"The Elves and the Shoemaker"
1991	Victim of Love	Tess Palmer	TV film
1991	The Legend of Prince Valiant	Queen Ilene (voice)	"The Secret of Perilous Garde"
1992	Fish Police	Angel Jones (voice)	Main role
1992	Jonathan: The Boy Nobody Wanted	Ginny Moore	TV film
1993	Jonny's Golden Quest	Jade Kenyon (voice)	TV film
1993	Sex, Love and Cold Hard Cash	Sarah Gallagher	TV film
1993	Chantilly Lace	Natalie	TV film
1993	Final Appeal	Christine Biondi	TV film
1993	Gloria Vane	Gloria Vane	TV film
1993	Frasier	Danielle (voice)	"Beloved Infidel"
1994	Frasier	Madeline Marshall	"Adventures in Paradise: Parts 1 & 2"
1994	Batman: The Animated Series	May / June (voice)	"Sideshow"
1994	Parallel Lives	Winnie Winslow	TV film
1994	Voices from Within	Nancy Parkhurst	TV film
1995	A Season of Hope	Elizabeth Hackett	TV film
1995–96	The Client	Reggie Love	Main role
1996	Ruby Jean and Joe	Rose	TV film
1996	Breaking Through	Pam Willis	TV film
1998	From the Earth to the Moon	Marge Slayton	"The Original Wives Club"
1998	A Chance of Snow	Madeline 'Maddie' Parker-Hill	TV film
1998	Stories from My Childhood	Queen Hildegard (voice)	"The Wild Swans"
1999	Payne	Constance 'Connie' Payne	Main role
1999	Justice	Jane Newhart	TV film
1999	It Came from the Sky	Alice Bridges	TV film
2000	Trapped in a Purple Haze	Sophie Hanson	TV film
2000	The Norm Show	Claire Stackhouse	"Norm vs. Youth: Part 2"
2001	The Ponder Heart	Edna Earle Ponder	TV film
2001	The Guardian	Sarah	"Heart"
2002	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Mrs. Rawley	"Waste"
2003	Judging Amy	Gemma Lawnsdale	"Judging Eric"
2003	Skin	Dr. Sara Rose	"Endorsement"
2003	Miss Match	Lianne Fox	"Pilot", "Jive Turkey", "Most Hopeless Romantics"
2004	Strong Medicine	Margie	"Fractured"
2005	14 Hours	Jeanette Makins	TV film
2005	Into the Fire	June Sickles	TV film
2005	Las Vegas	Liz	"The Real McCoy"
2006	24	Miriam Henderson	"Day 5: 5:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m."
2006	Numb3rs	Margaret Eppes	"Hot Shot"
2006	Criminal Minds	Prof. Ursula Kent	"Empty Planet"
2006	Worst Week of My Life	Libby	"Pilot"
2006	Twenty Good Years	Kate	"Remember the Alimony"
2006	Stroller Wars	Roberta	TV film
2006–07	The Nine	Sheryl Kates	"Outsiders", "Confessions"
2007	Sybil	Hattie Dorsett	TV film
2007	Dexter	Gail Brandon	Guest role (season 2)
2008	Life in General	Mary Kate Walton	Webseries
2009	Uncorked	Sophia Browning	TV film
2009–2011	Private Practice	Bizzy Forbes	Guest roles (seasons 3–4)
2011	NCIS	Leona Phelps	"One Last Score"
2011	Law & Order: LA	Mrs. Walker	"Benedict Canyon"
2011	Love's Christmas Journey	Mrs. Beatrice Thompson	TV film
2011–2015	Hart of Dixie	Candice Hart	Guest role (seasons 1–4)
2012	Scandal	Sandra Harding	"Hell Hath No Fury"
2013	Mistresses	Janet	"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"
2013–2015	Perception	Margaret Pierce	"Neuropositive", "Brainstorm"
2014	In My Dreams	Charlotte Smith	TV film
2014	Extant	Leigh Kern	"More in Heaven and Earth", "Incursion"
2014–15	Marry Me	Myrna Schuffman	Recurring role
2015	Your Family or Mine	Ricky Weston	Main role
2016	Childrens Hospital	Linda	"DOY"
2016	Home	Helen	TV film
2016	Rizzoli & Isles	Tilly Dunn	"For Richer or Poorer"
2018	The Good Doctor	Ruth	"She"
2018	Living Biblically	Diana	"Let Us Pray"

References

1. JoBeth Williams Biography (1948?-)
2. Shilcutt, Katharine. "Still Standing." Houston Press. Wednesday January 12, 2011. 1. Retrieved on January 13, 2011.
3. "Distinguished HISD Alumni Archived 2012-05-15 at the Wayback Machine," Houston Independent School District'. Retrieved on January 13, 2011.
4. JoBeth Williams- Biography, Yahoo! Movies
5. "The Ponder Heart". PBS Masterpiece. Archived from the original on November 8, 2001. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
6. "JoBeth Williams' 'THE CLIENT' begins encore run on TNT". The Houston Chronicle. March 14, 1999.

External links

• JoBeth Williams at IMDb
• JoBeth Williams at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• JoBeth Williams at AllMovie