June Squibb

June Squibb is an American actress born on November 6, 1929, in Vandalia, Illinois, whose career on Broadway spans from 1959 to 2025. She trained at HB Studio and worked at The Muny before relocating to Cleveland in 1951, where she sang and danced at the Cleveland Play House and appeared in productions including Marseilles, The Play's the Thing, Goodbye My Fancy, The Heiress, Detective Story, Antigone, Ladies in Retirement, and Bloomer Girl. In the late 1950s, she and her second husband, acting teacher Charles Kakatsakis, moved to New York City to pursue Broadway careers. Prior to her Broadway debut, she played Dulcie in the 1958 off-Broadway production of The Boy Friend and starred in the 1959 off-Broadway revival of Lend an Ear.

Squibb made her Broadway debut by replacing the role of Electra in the original production of Gypsy: A Musical Fable in 1959. She returned to Broadway in 1968 with The Happy Time, a musical that received a Tony Award for Best Musical nomination. Her subsequent Broadway credits include Gorey Stories, Sacrilege, and Marjorie Prime. Between stage engagements, she performed on road tours and cruise ships, did modeling work for romance novels, and worked as Santa Claus's helper in shopping malls during the Christmas season. She received her SAG/AFTRA card in 1985 following an appearance in an episode of CBS Schoolbreak Special.

Squibb made her film debut in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Alice in 1990. Throughout the 1990s she appeared in supporting roles in Scent of a Woman (1992), The Age of Innocence (1993), In & Out (1997), and Meet Joe Black (1998). In 2002 she co-starred opposite Jack Nicholson as his wife in the comedy-drama About Schmidt, and that same year appeared in Far from Heaven. Additional film credits from that period include Welcome to Mooseport (2004) and Just Add Water (2008).

Her film breakthrough came with Alexander Payne's Nebraska (2013), in which she starred opposite Bruce Dern. Her performance earned her the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, and nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. In 2015 she starred opposite Blythe Danner in I'll See You in My Dreams and appeared in Love the Coopers. She was inducted into the Cleveland Play House Hall of Fame in 2016. Further film appearances include Other People (2016), Father Figures (2017), Blow the Man Down (2019), Palm Springs (2020), Hubie Halloween (2020), The Humans (2021), and Family Squares (2022). In 2024 she took on her first leading film role in the action comedy Thelma and appeared in the black comedy Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.

Squibb has also contributed voice performances to several animated features, including Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Toy Story 4 (2019), Soul (2020), Inside Out 2 (2024), and Zootopia 2 (2025). On television, she held a recurring role in the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children and appeared as a recurring cast member in Ghost Whisperer from 2005 to 2007 and as Pearl in The Young and the Restless from 2008 to 2009. She had a recurring role in Good Girls from 2018 to 2019 and played Etta Teasdale in Shameless beginning in 2016. Guest appearances include Law & Order, ER, Just Shoot Me!, Judging Amy, Two and a Half Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Girls, Glee, Devious Maids, Mom, Getting On, The Big Bang Theory, and Grey's Anatomy.

Squibb married Edward Sostek in 1953; they divorced in 1959. That same year she married Charles Kakatsakis, with whom she had a son, Harry, a filmmaker who directed the short film Admissions. She converted to Judaism in the 1950s.