Judith Light

Judith Ellen Light, born February 9, 1949, in Trenton, New Jersey, is an American actress whose career has spanned stage, television, and film for more than five decades. The daughter of Pearl Sue (née Hollander), a model, and Sidney Licht, an accountant, she was raised in a Jewish family and graduated from St. Mary's Hall–Doane Academy in Burlington, New Jersey in 1966. She went on to earn a drama degree from Carnegie Mellon University, completing what she described as a rigorous four-year program alongside a graduating class of fifteen actors.

Light made her professional stage debut in 1970, performing in Richard III at the California Shakespeare Festival. Her Broadway debut followed in 1975 in a revival of A Doll's House, and she appeared on Broadway the following year in Herzl. During this period she also worked with regional companies including the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Her Broadway career extended through 2015 and encompassed productions including Lombardi, Ltd., Other Desert Cities, The Assembled Parties, and Thérèse Raquin.

Her first Tony Award nomination came in 2011 for her performance in Lombardi. She then won two consecutive Tony Awards for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play — in 2012 for Other Desert Cities and in 2013 for The Assembled Parties. The 2013 win was accompanied by a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play.

In the late 1970s, following a difficult stretch during which she struggled to find work and nearly left acting, Light auditioned for a role on the ABC daytime soap opera One Life to Live after her agent persuaded her by noting the daily salary of $350. Rather than landing the understudy position she had been called in for, she was cast as Karen Wolek, a role previously played by Kathryn Breech and Julia Duffy. The character's arc — a housewife who becomes an alcoholic prostitute and ultimately confesses her secret life on the witness stand in open court — generated some of the series' most-watched storylines. The courtroom confession scene, in which Karen saves her friend Viki Lord Riley from a murder conviction by publicly admitting to prostitution in front of her husband, Dr. Larry Wolek, became one of the most cited moments in daytime television history and has been used in acting classes. Light won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in both 1980 and 1981 for the role.

Following her daytime success, Light was cast as Angela Bower, an assertive advertising executive, in the ABC sitcom Who's the Boss?, which co-starred Tony Danza as her housekeeper and ran for eight seasons from 1984 to 1992. The series ranked consistently in the Nielsen top ten between 1985 and 1989 and was later ranked 109th on TV Guide's list of the best sitcoms of all time. During the same period she appeared in several television films, including Stamp of a Killer (1987) with Jimmy Smits and The Ryan White Story (1989), in which she played the mother of HIV/AIDS-positive teenager Ryan White. She also starred in Wife, Mother, Murderer (1991), playing Audrey Marie Hilley. After Who's the Boss? concluded, she appeared in the ABC sitcom Phenom, which ran one season in 1993–94, and later in The Simple Life on CBS in 1998 and The Stones on CBS in 2004.

In 1999, Light returned to the stage in the off-Broadway production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit, portraying Vivian Bearing, a university professor with ovarian cancer. She shaved her head for the role and subsequently reprised it on national tour. She returned to television in 2002 with a recurring role as Judge Elizabeth Donnelly in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, appearing in 25 episodes through 2010. In 2006 she joined the cast of the ABC comedy-drama Ugly Betty as Claire Meade, beginning as a recurring guest star before being promoted to series regular in the second season and remaining through the 2010 series finale. Her performance earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2007 and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for ensemble performance in 2008.

From 2013 to 2014, Light played Judith Brown Ryland in the TNT drama Dallas. Beginning in 2014, she starred as Shelly Pfefferman in the Amazon Studios dark comedy-drama Transparent, a role that brought her multiple Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy, and Critics' Choice Award nominations. In 2018 she received additional Primetime Emmy and Critics' Choice Award nominations for portraying Marilyn Miglin in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. In 2024, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Poker Face. Light was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.