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| Birth Name(s) : Debra Jo Rupp |
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Full Debra Jo Rupp Biography
Debra Jo Rupp (born February 24, 1951) is an American television actress perhaps best known for her role as Kitty Forman on the long-running FOX live-action sitcom That '70s Show (1998-2006). She is a natural actor as opposed to a method actor.
Rupp was born in Glendale, California to Margaret (née Williams). She has two sisters. Rupp was raised in Massachusetts, graduating from Masconomet Regional High School in Boxford, Massachusetts in 1970. She went on to attend the University of Rochester in New York state, graduating in 1974.
In 1990, she returned to the theater to play Mae in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Kathleen Turner at New York City's Eugene O'Neill Theatre. She had recurring roles on television on Davis Rules, and as Jerry Seinfeld's somewhat annoying booking agent on Seinfeld. Rupp also had a small part as a psychiatric patient in the feature film Death Becomes Her, and then returned to the small screen in the television movies, A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story (1992) with Meredith Baxter and Stephen Collins, and Ambush in Waco: In the Line of Duty (1993). In 1995, Rupp appeared in a three-episode science fiction mini-series, The Invaders with Scott Bakula.
From 1995 to 1996, she appeared as Jeff Foxworthy's sister-in-law Gayle, in The Jeff Foxworthy Show. Rupp brought her talents to the big screen again in 1996's Sgt. Bilko, and in 1997, as the office manager in the cult indie hit, Clockwatchers, which starred Lisa Kudrow, Parker Posey, and Toni Colette.
She made use of her comedic talents in several episodes of Friends as Alice Knight, a home economics teacher who fell in love with and married Phoebe Buffay's (Lisa Kudrow) much younger half-brother, Frank Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi). It was those performances on Friends that earned her notice among the That '70s Show casting department.
1998 was a busy year for Rupp. Not only was it the year she began her role as Kitty Forman in the long-running hit comedy series, That '70s Show, but she also portrayed Marilyn See, wife of astronaut Elliott See, in the Emmy Award-winning television mini-series From the Earth to the Moon, produced by Tom Hanks and directed by Sally Field.
Her distinctive voice was heard as the character of Mrs. Helperman in Disney's animated series Teacher's Pet in 2000, and again for the 2004 movie version. In 2004, Rupp also appeared as Brad Hunt's nagging mother in Lucky 13, an independent film starring Lauren Graham. She then returned to All My Children for one episode in December 2005, playing a homeless woman named Victoria. That '70s Show ended its run in 2006, after which Rupp appeared in a more serious role, in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit entitled "Infiltrate." In it, she portrayed the wife of a murdered pharmaceutical CEO, desperately attempting to hide her late husband's past sexual abuses.
Early 2007 saw the release of the feature film, Kickin It Old Skool, in which Rupp played Jamie Kennedy's mother. In the summer of 2007, she returned to her Off-Broadway theater roots as Valerie in the Second Stage Theatre production of Marisa Wegrzynat's The Butcher of Baraboo, directed by Judith Ivey. The character of Valerie is suspected of having a hand in the disappearance of her husband. While the play and the direction received lukewarm reviews, Rupp's performance did garner some praise, mostly for having risen above the lackluster material.
She quit smoking in 2000 and the event was highly publicized; it also caused her to gain twenty-five pounds. In subsequent years, Rupp controlled her weight and kicked smoking for good. On That '70s Show, Kitty Forman's smoking addiction was also written out of the show, in tune with Rupp's new lifestyle choice. |
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