Jane Leeves

Jane Leeves is an English actress and Broadway performer born on 18 April 1961 in Ilford, Essex, and raised in East Grinstead, Sussex. The daughter of an engineer and a nurse, she grew up alongside two sisters and a brother before pursuing a career in performance that would take her from British television to American sitcoms, film, and the Broadway stage.

Leeves began her career in the United Kingdom, appearing as a regular member of the dance troupe Hill's Angels on The Benny Hill Show starting in 1983. That same year, her experience as a dancer contributed to her appearance in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. After relocating to the United States, she took on small roles while working to establish herself, including an appearance in the music video for David Lee Roth's "California Girls." She was cast as Holly in the pilot for an American version of the science-fiction comedy Red Dwarf, and went on to secure recurring roles in two prominent sitcoms: she played Audrey Cohen, the girlfriend of producer Miles Silverberg, in Murphy Brown, and appeared as Marla Penny in four episodes of Seinfeld, including "The Virgin," "The Contest," "The Pilot," and "The Finale – Part 2." From 1986 to 1988, she had her first leading role in the sitcom Throb.

In 1993, Leeves joined the cast of the NBC sitcom Frasier, playing Daphne Moon, a Mancunian housekeeper described as eccentric, forthright, and psychic. She remained with the series through its conclusion in 2004. During the show's eighth season, the writers incorporated her real-life pregnancy into the storyline as her character's weight gain. Her performance earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the 50th Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film at the 52nd Golden Globe Awards. Leeves and her Frasier costar Peri Gilpin, who is also her neighbor and close friend, co-founded a production company called Bristol Cities. Their work together included a 2007 pilot for a US adaptation of the British sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, titled The Minister of Divine, featuring Kirstie Alley in the lead role.

Alongside her television work, Leeves appeared in several films. She contributed her speaking and singing voices to the animated feature James and the Giant Peach in 1996, voicing Mrs. Ladybug, and appeared in Miracle on 34th Street in 1994, Music of the Heart in 1999, and The Event in 2003. In 2002, she appeared on Broadway in the musical Cabaret. In 2004, she hosted an episode of the British television comedy quiz show Have I Got News for You. She also provided guest vocals for The Penguins of Madagascar, voicing Lulu, a female chimpanzee. In 2010, she guest starred in two episodes of ABC's Desperate Housewives as a therapist.

From 2010 to 2015, Leeves starred as Joy Scroggs, a former eyebrow artist to the stars, in the TV Land comedy Hot in Cleveland, alongside Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick, and Betty White. The series ran for six seasons and 128 episodes. In 2011, she and the cast received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series at the 17th Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2018, Leeves returned to television in her first regular dramatic role, playing orthopaedic surgeon Kit Voss in the Fox medical drama The Resident.

In her personal life, Leeves is married to Marshall Coben, an executive at CBS Studios. The couple have two children, a daughter and a son. Gilpin was present in the delivery room when Leeves's first child was born, and the actual weight of that child, 9 pounds 12 ounces, was referenced in a line of dialogue in season eight of Frasier.