Early life

Williams was born in Houston, Texas, and 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.

She graduated from Pembroke College in Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1970, intending to become a child psychologist. Instead, she turned to theater, training with Jim Barnhill and John Emigh as well as at the Trinity Repertory Company, taking voice lessons to neutralize her Texan accent. Then she moved to New York City and began to appear in television series in the mid 1970s.

Career

Early 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, appropriately enough, 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.

Motion pictures

She is perhaps most recognized for her roles in Stir Crazy (1980), with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and Poltergeist (1982), as suburban housewife Diane Freeling (she reprised her character in a sequel, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, 1986). A year later she was part of the ensemble comedy-drama The Big Chill (1983). This led to her only major starring role in a studio feature film, American Dreamer (1984), opposite Tom Conti. 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.

She 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 reteamed with 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.

She also co-starred with Ed O'Neill in director John Hughes's comedy Dutch (1991) and 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, it was her directorial debut and starred Annette O'Toole. In 1997, she played a domineering lesbian in the independent comedy, Little City, with Jon Bon Jovi, and a 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.

Television work

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.

She 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, who literally takes a (nonfatal) bullet for her husband.

She appeared in one episode of the 1998 TV miniseries From the Earth to the Moon as Marge Slayton, the wife of Deke Slayton. The episode is part 11 of the series and titled "The Original Wives Club."

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 ten episodes.

In 2007, she joined Dexter for a four-episode arc as the serial killer's future mother-in-law. 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 since 2009.

In 2014, she appeared in the CBS sci-fi drama Extant, as Leigh Kern (season 1, episode 7).

Personal life

She is married to TV and film director John Pasquin (with whom she worked on Jungle 2 Jungle); they have two children.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974	Jabberwocky	JoBeth
1977-1978	Guiding Light	Brandy Shelloe
1979	Kramer vs. Kramer	Phyllis Bernard
1980	Stir Crazy	Meredith
	Dogs of War, TheThe Dogs of War	Jessie Shannon
1982	Poltergeist	Diane Freeling	Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
	Endangered Species	Harriet Purdue
1983	Big Chill, TheThe Big Chill	Karen
	Adam	Revé Walsh	Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
	Day After, TheThe Day After	Nurse Nancy Bauer
1984	Teachers	Lisa Hammond
	American Dreamer	Cathy Palmer/Rebecca Ryan
1985	Kids Don't Tell	Claudia Ryan
1986	Desert Bloom	Lois Chismore
	Poltergeist II: The Other Side	Diane Freeling
	Adam: His Song Continues	Revé Walsh
1987	Murder Ordained	Lorna Andersen
1988	Memories of Me	Lisa the Christian
	Baby M	Mary Beth Whitehead	Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Miniseries or Television Film
1989	My Name Is Bill W.	Lois Bernham Wilson
1990	Welcome Home	Dee Mobley
	Child in the Night	Dr. Hollis
1991	Switch	Margo Brofman
	Dutch	Natalie Standish
	Victim of Love	Dr. Tess Palmer	aka Raw Heat
1992	Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot	Lt. Gwen Harper
	Me, Myself & I	Crazy Diane/Sane Diane
	Jonathan: The Boy Nobody Wanted	Ginny Moore
	Fish Police	Angel	6 episodes, voice
1993	Chantilly Lace	Natalie
1993-1994	Frasier	Madeline Marshall	3 episodes Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
1994	Wyatt Earp	Bessie Earp
	On Hope		Nominated — Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film
	Parallel Lives	Winnie Winslow
1995	Hallmark Hall of Fame: A Season of Hope	Elizabeth Hackett	aka The Lemon Grove
1995-1996	The Client	Regina 'Reggie' Love	21 episodes
1996	Ruby Jean & Joe	Rose
1997	When Danger Follows You Home	Anne Werden
	Little City	Anne
	Jungle 2 Jungle	Dr. Patricia Cromwell
	Just Write	Sidney Stone
1998	Chance of Snow, AA Chance of Snow	Maddie Parker
	From the Earth to the Moon	Marge Slayton	Episode 11: The Original Wives Club
1999	It Came From the Sky	Alice Bridges
	Payne	Constance 'Connie' Payne	9 episodes
2000	Trapped in a Purple Haze	Sophie Hanson
2001	Masterpiece Theatre: The Ponder Heart	Edna Earle Ponder
2002	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Mrs. Rawley	1 episode
2005	Into the Fire	June Sickles
	crazylove	Mrs. Mayer
	14 Hours	Jeanette Makins
	Fever Pitch	Maureen Meeks
2006	24	Miriam Henderson	1 episode
2006-2007	The Nine	Sheryl Kates	2 episodes
2007	Sybil	Hattie
	Dexter	Gail Brandon	4 episodes
2009	TiMER	Marion
	Uncorked	Sophia Browning
	Criminal Minds	Ursula Kent	1 episode
2009-2011	Private Practice	Bizzy Montgomery	6 episodes
2011	NCIS	Leona Phelps	1 episode
	Love's Christmas Journey	Charlyn
	Big Year, TheThe Big Year	Edith Preissler
2012	Scandal	Sandra Harding	1 episode
2011-2012	Hart of Dixie	Candice Hart	3 episodes
2013	Mistresses	Janet	1 episode
	Perception	Margaret
2014	In My Dreams	Charlotte	TV film
2014-2015	Marry Me	Myrna	Recurring role
2015	Your Family or Mine	Ricky	Series regular

[ Source: Wikipedia ]