JoBeth Williams

**JoBeth Williams** is one of the actors of ***A Million Little Things***, portraying the role of Lana Strobe.

## Biography

### **Early life**

Williams was born on December 6, 1948 in Houston, Texas, USA. She is the daughter of Frances Faye (née Adams), a dietitian, and Fredric Roger Williams, an opera singer and manager of a wire and cable company. Williams grew up in the South Park neighborhood of Houston, and attended Jones High School, from which she graduated in 1966.

### **Career**

Williams's first television role was on the Boston-produced first-run syndicated children's television series *Jabberwocky*, which debuted in 1972. Her character was named JoBeth. She joined the *Jabberwocky* cast in season two, replacing the original hostess, Joanne Sopko. The series ran until 1978. She was a regular on two soap operas, playing Carrie Wheeler on *Somerset* and Brandy Shelloe on *Guiding Light*. Williams's feature-film debut came in 1979's*Kramer vs. Kramer* as a girlfriend of Dustin Hoffman's character, memorably quizzed by his son after being discovered walking nude to the bathroom.

Williams is perhaps most recognized for her roles in *Stir Crazy* (1980), with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, *The Dogs of War* (1980) with Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger, and *Poltergeist* (1982), as suburban housewife Diane Freeling, a character she reprised in a sequel, *Poltergeist II: The Other Side* (1986). A year later, she was part of the ensemble comedy-drama *The Big Chill* (1983). Her starring role in the film *American Dreamer* (1984), opposite Tom Conti, earned her the 1985 Best Actress Award from the Kansas City Film Critics Circle. High-profile co-starring roles in *Teachers* (1984) with Nick Nolte, *Desert Bloom* (1986) with Jon Voight, *Memories of Me* with Billy Crystal (1988), and Blake Edwards's *Switch* (1991) with Ellen Barkin followed.

Williams is also known for starring opposite Kris Kristofferson in Oscar-winning director Franklin J. Schaffner's final film, the Vietnam POW drama *Welcome Home* (1989). In 1992, she re-teamed with *The Big Chill* director Lawrence Kasdan to portray Bessie Earp in *Wyatt Earp* with Kevin Costner, and starred as Crazy Diane/Sane Diane, a schizophrenic shut-in, in the dark independent comedy, *Me Myself & I*.

Williams also co-starred with Ed O'Neill in the John Hughes-written comedy *Dutch* (1991), and starred in *Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot* (1992) as the police detective/love interest of Sylvester Stallone's character. In 1995, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her 1994 live-action short *On Hope*, starring Annette O'Toole; the film was Williams's directorial debut. In 1997, she played a domineering lesbian in the independent comedy *Little City* with Jon Bon Jovi, and an hysterical publishing editor in *Just Write* with Jeremy Piven. In 2005, she appeared in the Drew Barrymore-Jimmy Fallon baseball comedy *Fever Pitch*.

In October 2011, she appeared with Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, Rashida Jones, and Jack Black in the bird-watching comedy *The Big Year* for Twentieth Century Fox.

Williams has also gained critical acclaim for a number of performances in notable television movies, including the nuclear holocaust film *The Day After* (1983), *Murder Ordained* (1987), as Lois Burnham Wilson in *My Name is Bill W.* (1989), and the critically acclaimed Masterpiece Theatre presentation of *The Ponder Heart* (2003) for director Martha Coolidge.

Williams earned Emmy nominations for starring as real-life characters Revé Walsh (the wife of John Walsh) in the film *Adam* (1983) and Mary Beth Whitehead in *Baby M* (1988). In 1993, she anchored the improvised Showtime dramedy *Chantilly Lace* with Helen Slater and Martha Plimpton. She also had an Emmy-nominated guest-starring role on *Frasier*, and played Reggie Love in the 1995–1996 CBS series *The Client* (adapted from the 1994 film of the same title), which lasted only 21 episodes, but gained a wider audience when it was rebroadcast in reruns on the TNT Network.

Williams appeared on a 2006 episode of *24* as Christopher Henderson (Peter Weller)'s wife, Miriam. She appeared in one episode of the 1998 TV miniseries *From the Earth to the Moon* as Marge Slayton, the wife of Deke Slayton. In 1999, Williams teamed with John Larroquette and Julie Benz for the CBS network situation comedy *Payne*. The show, which was the American television version of the hit British comedy Fawlty Towers, lasted just 10 episodes.

In 2007, Williams joined *Dexter* for a four-episode arc as the serial killer's future mother-in-law, whose daughter was also played by Benz. Also, she appeared in a memorable 2009 *Criminal Minds* listed as Special Guest Star in the episode "Empty Planet" as Professor Ursula Kent, who helps the BAU with a bomb threat in Seattle. She has played the recurring role of Bizzy Forbes-Montgomery, mother of Kate Walsh's Addison, on ABC's *Private Practice*. In 2014, she appeared in the CBS science-fiction drama *Extant*. Most recently, she appeared on *Project Blue Book*, *Station 19* or *The Good Doctor*.

In 2023, Williams was cast as Lana Strobe on *A Million Little Things*.

### **Personal life**

Williams is married to TV and film director John Pasquin, with whom she worked on Jungle 2 Jungle; they have two sons: Will and Nick; and she has a step-daughter, Sarah, from Pasquin's previous marriage.

## External links

* Official Facebook
* Official Twitter
* Official Instagram