Debra Jo Rupp

At 73 years old, Debra Jo Rupp has this physical status:

Debra Jo Rupp (born February 24, 1951) is an American actress best known for her appearances as Kitty Forman and Alice Knight-Buffay on Fox's That '70s Show and Alice Knight-Buffay on the third, fourth, and fifth seasons of Friends.

Mary Helperman appeared in Teacher's Pet and its sequel film, as well as playing timid secretary Miss Patterson in Big (1988).

Early life and education

Rupp was born in Glendale, California, to Margaret A. Williams Rupp and John E. Rupp Jr., who attended Masconomet Regional High School, graduating in 1969. Robin Lee Rupp and Rebecca Louise Rupp are two of her sisters.

Rupp always wanted to be a star, but her parents were firmly opposed to the idea. They took her to the University of Rochester in New York because it had no theater classes, but Rupp's freshman year, the school did not have a drama department, but it did have a drama department. On campus, she was an active participant of Drama House, a small theater club and venue. After graduating with a B.A. degree, I began writing a B.A. She went to New York in 1974 to begin her acting career.

Personal life

She has two homes, one in Lee, Massachusetts, where she lives while doing theatre work in New York, and the other in Los Angeles, where she remains active on television and film projects. In an interview, she said she is a Methodist.

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Career

Rupp left Massachusetts in 1979 to pursue an acting career in New York City. Sheila, a topless dancer on the daytime drama All My Children, appeared on stage and appeared in commercials before winning her first television role in 1980 as Sheila. In Sharon Tipsword's one-act comedy Second Verse, a one-act comedy produced as part of a play festival at the Nat Horne Theater in New York earlier this year.

Eleanor, the young bride in A. R. Gurney's 1985 production of The Middle Ages at the Whole Theater Company, established by Olympia Dukakis in Montclair, New Jersey, was another notable stage performance.

In a New York Times review of one of her many off-Broadway appearances, June Yeager, a young wife who claims she is never "loved enough," in Arthur Laurents' dramatic play The Time of the Cuckoo's stunning play The Time of the Cuckoo performed at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City's Upper East Side, she earned acclaim.

Rupp's resume includes appearances in Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny as well as Cynthia Heimel's A Girl's Guide to Chaos, the Broadway role that launched her career forward. Cynthia was born in 1986, a woman based on Heimel's experiences during her stints as a columnist for Playboy and The Village Voice. Cynthia was immortalized by legendary caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who shared the stage with Rita Jenrette, and the performance was described in a New York Times review as "an appealing blend of pluck and pathos." Allan Wallach, a theater critic, called Rupp "a true find" in his review of Chaos.

Rupp appeared in an article written by Enid Nemy for the New York Times' "Broadway" section in early 1987. The interview titled "New York is beckoning, but first, Los Angeles," revealed how Rupp's success in the theater so soon after she had left New York City terrified her enough to suspend from acting for many years. Rupp said she was often seen as an ingénue on stage, but after her portrayal of Cynthia in Chaos, she began receiving calls to audition in Los Angeles for "really bizarre neurotic" roles in television pilots. She was realistic about the unpredictability of an acting career, and since she had promised her mother that she would never wait tables before she left for New York, she had not given up her part-time work as a bookkeeper and was "learning computers" as something to fall back on.

Rupp continued to act full time in the 1980s and appeared in numerous regional stage productions. At the Yale Repertory Theatre's Winterfest play festival of 1988, Sherry Kramer's Wall of Water in New Haven, Connecticut, was one such performance. Kate & Allie, Spenser for Hire, and Molly Dodd's Days and Nights appeared on many television shows, including Kate & Allie, Spenser for Hire and The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. Rupp's debut in 1988 as Miss Patterson, Tom Hanks' timid secretary, starred in the comedy Big.

Rupp appeared in a Broadway stage production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Kathleen Turner at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in 1990. Rupp portrayed Mae (Sister Woman) in this film. Ms. Higgins of the television series Davis Rules with Randy Quaid, as well as Sister Mary Incarnata on Phenom with Judith Light, as well as guest appearances on Blossom, Family Matters, L.A. Law, and ER.

On an episode of Seinfeld (a role she reprised in 1996), she performed Meg in Broken Bones, a dramatic drama about spousal harassment played by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan. Lana Lionheart's voice was featured in the "MGM Sing-Along" videos in 1997. Rupp appeared in 1997 independent film Clockwatchers, co-starring Lisa Kudrow, Parker Posey, and Toni Colette.

Alice Knight, a home economics teacher who fell in love with and married Phoebe Kudrow's (Lisa Kudrow) younger half-brother Frank Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi), appeared in several episodes of Friends as Alice Knight, a much younger sister. She began portraying Kitty Forman in the comedy "That '70s Show" in 1998. In episode 11 of Emmy Award-winning television miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, portrayed Marilyn See, wife of astronaut Elliot See, which was also directed by Sally Field.

In Disney's animated film Teacher's Pet, she appeared as Mrs. Helperman, and again in 2004's animated film version. Susan Kraker and Pi Ware's official selection at the Sundance Film Festival won several awards at film festivals around the world, with a stand-up comedian with a mystery. In Lucky 13, a full-length independent film starring Lauren Graham, she appeared Brad Hunt's nagging mother in 2004. Victoria was back to All My Children for one episode in December 2005 as a homeless woman.

Rupp has appeared on national and off-Broadway stage productions in Massachusetts and New York. In 2004, she appeared in Michael Frayn's Noises Off at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts, as Dotty Otley. She appeared in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, as a kooky mother in French playwright Jean Anouilh's comedy Ring Round the Moon at Barrington Stage Company in 2006.

In June 2007, Rupp returned to Broadway for Valerie in Marisa Wegerzyn's The Butcher of Baraboo, directed by Judith Ivey. Ida Bolton appeared in the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, two months later, in a revival of Paul Osborn's 1939 play Morning's at Seven.

In 2006, the '70s Show's ended. Rupp appeared on television shortly after as the widow of a murdered pharmaceutical CEO on the crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Rupp's character is frantically trying to deny her slain husband's sexual assaults in the episode titled "Infiltrated." In early 2007, the feature film Kickin It Old Skool was released, in which Rupp was played as Jamie Kennedy's mother. In 2008, she appeared as a restaurant owner who supports two homeless men in Jackson's comedy-drama-musical, which was written and directed by J. F. Lawton. She returned to daytime television in a guest appearance on As the World Turns in the same year.

In 2008, Rupp appeared in A Flea in Her Ear at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, and in Miss Maudie's To Kill a Mockingbird at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, he appeared onstage. Ruth Russell was portrayed in She Wants Me, an independent romantic comedy, in 2012.

Rupp appeared in Dr. Ruth and July 2012 as Dr. Ruth Westheimer in Dr. Ruth – All the Way on the Barrington Stage Company's St. Germain Stage. The play displayed a sex therapist's life, from fleeing the Nazis in the Kindertransport to joining the Haganah in Jerusalem as a scout and sniper to her attempts to succeed as a single mother in America. Rupp reprised her role in Becoming Dr. Ruth, which was nominated for the 2014 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Achievement.

Rupp appeared on WandaVision in 2021 as Mrs. Hart, Wanda and Vision's neighbor.

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