Jane Kaczmarek

Jane Frances Kaczmarek, born December 21, 1955, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is an American actress whose work spans stage, film, and television. The daughter of Evelyn Kaczmarek, a teacher, and Edward Kaczmarek, a US Department of Defense worker, she is of Polish descent and grew up in Greendale, a village outside Milwaukee, where she was raised Roman Catholic. She attended and graduated from Greendale High School.

Kaczmarek's Broadway career includes a 1991 appearance in Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers, in which she served as a replacement for the role of Bella. Her television work began with appearances on St. Elsewhere before she took on a regular role as Connie Lehman in the first eight episodes of the Showtime run of The Paper Chase. She also appeared in recurring roles as Holly in Cybill and as Maureen Cutler in Frasier, and played Linda Bauer in the legal drama Equal Justice from 1990 to 1991.

Cast in 1999, Kaczmarek debuted as Lois on the Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle when the series premiered on January 9, 2000. The role ran through 2006 and earned her seven Primetime Emmy nominations and three Golden Globe nominations. Kaczmarek later credited the series with developing her comedic abilities, noting that prior to Malcolm in the Middle she was unable to secure auditions for comedy roles. TV Guide described her performance as a "true breakout; a female Homer Simpson."

Her film credits include Ann in Falling in Love (1984), Emily in The Heavenly Kid (1985), and Gayle in the Netflix film 6 Balloons (2018). On television, she portrayed Judge Trudy Kessler in Raising the Bar from 2008 to 2009. That same year, in September 2008, she appeared on stage in The House of Blue Leaves at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. In 2011, she provided the voice of Red Jessica in the animated series Jake and the Never Land Pirates, a role that aired during the show's second season in early 2012. Also in 2011, she narrated Wisconsin's Nazi Resistance: The Mildred Fish-Harnack Story, a documentary produced by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board and PBS about Milwaukee native Mildred Fish-Harnack, who in 1943 became the only American woman personally sentenced to death by Adolf Hitler for her involvement in the German Nazi Resistance Movement.

Kaczmarek made a guest appearance in November 2012 on ABC's The Middle as Frankie Heck's dental teacher, and in 2013 she guest starred on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Suffolk County D.A. Pamela James. In November 2013, she and former Malcolm in the Middle co-star Bryan Cranston reprised their roles as Lois and Hal in an alternate ending featurette included on the Breaking Bad DVD and Blu-ray box set, in which Hal wakes to discover the events of Breaking Bad were a nightmare, referencing the finale of Newhart.

On August 15, 1992, Kaczmarek married actor and fellow Wisconsin native Bradley Whitford. The couple lived in Pasadena, California, with their three children and in 2002 co-founded the charity Clothes off Our Back, which auctioned celebrity outfits and accessories worn at award ceremonies to raise funds. In April 2004, Kaczmarek underwent a hip replacement due to chronic arthritis. The couple filed for divorce in June 2009 after nearly 17 years of marriage; the divorce was finalized in October 2010, at which time they sold their 1924 villa in San Marino, California.