Patricia Richardson

Patricia Richardson, born February 23, 1951, in Bethesda, Maryland, is an American actress whose career has spanned Broadway, television, and film. She attended Holton-Arms School and Hockaday School before graduating from Southern Methodist University in 1972.

Richardson's professional career began on Broadway, where she worked from 1974 to 1982. Her first Broadway credit came in 1974, when she served as understudy for the role of Gypsy Rose Lee in Angela Lansbury's production of Gypsy while also performing in several small chorus parts. She went on to appear in Loose Ends and The Wake of Jamey Foster. During the same period, she worked extensively in regional theater, commercials, and Off-Broadway productions, including Beth Henley's The Miss Firecracker Contest. She married fellow actor Ray Baker in 1982, and the couple had three children: Henry Richardson Baker, born February 22, 1985, and twins Roxanne Elizabeth Baker and Joe Castle Baker, born January 3, 1991. They divorced in 1995.

Richardson's television work in the 1980s included guest appearances on The Equalizer, Spencer for Hire, Kate and Allie, and a third-season episode of The Cosby Show, in which she appeared alongside her real-life husband playing a woman giving birth to her ninth child. In 1989 she appeared in an episode of Quantum Leap as a radio station owner. She also had a role in the 1983 NBC sitcom Double Trouble, produced by Norman Lear and centered on Katey Sagal's twin sisters, Liz and Jean Sagal. After declining to return for a second season, she remained in New York for stage work before eventually relocating to Los Angeles, where producer Allan Burns cast her in two sitcoms, Eisenhower and Lutz and FM, each of which ran for 13 episodes. Her film credits from this period include Christmas Evil and C.H.U.D.

In 1991, three months after giving birth to twins, Richardson stepped in as a last-minute replacement for Frances Fisher in the role of Jill Taylor on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement. The role became her breakthrough, earning her four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actress in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical. While working on Home Improvement, she co-hosted the Emmy Awards with Ellen DeGeneres and starred in the miniseries Undue Influence opposite Brian Dennehy, as well as the Lifetime film Sophie and the Moonhanger with Lynn Whitfield. In 1997, she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her performance in the theatrical film Ulee's Gold.

Following Home Improvement, Richardson joined the Lifetime medical drama Strong Medicine in 2002, replacing Janine Turner with the new character Dr. Andy Campbell. She received two Prism Award nominations for that role and remained with the series for three seasons. She subsequently appeared in a recurring role as Sheila Brooks, campaign manager for fictional Republican presidential candidate Arnold Vinick, played by Alan Alda, during the final two seasons of NBC's The West Wing. She also appeared in the first season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Richardson's later career included the 2008 documentary Long Story Short, for which she served as executive producer. The film chronicles the story of Larry and Trudie Long, an Asian American nightclub act of the 1940s and 1950s, as told through the perspective of their daughter and actress Jodi Long. She appeared in the NBC television film The Jensen Project in 2010 and the Lifetime film Bringing Ashley Home in 2011. Additional credits include the 2012 film Beautiful Wave, the 2013 Hallmark Channel film Smart Cookies, and two further Hallmark films, Friend Request and Snow Bride. She guest-starred on Last Man Standing in the fourth-season episode "Helen Potts," reuniting with her former Home Improvement co-star Tim Allen, and reprised the role in the following season.

In 2015, Richardson ran for national president of SAG-AFTRA, having previously served one term on the board, and narrowly lost the election to incumbent president Ken Howard. She was subsequently re-elected to both the national and Los Angeles local boards of the union. The following year she returned to the stage in a production of Steel Magnolias at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania, directed by four-time Oscar nominee Marsha Mason and co-starring Elaine Hendrix, Lucy DeVito, Jessica Walter, and Susan Sullivan. On June 9, 2016, the production became the highest-grossing show in the history of the Bucks County Playhouse.

Richardson has served on the Board of Directors of Cure PSP, a patient advocacy and research organization focused on progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal degeneration, multiple system atrophy, and related diseases, and serves as the organization's national spokesperson. Her father died of PSP in 2005. She had a long-term relationship with retired psychologist Mark Cline, whom she first met as a fellow student at Southern Methodist University.