Anita Gillette
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Anita Gillette (Born Anita Leubben on August 16, 1936), is a Tony nominated American actress, most notable for her work on Broadway and as a celebrity guest on various game shows. Most recently, she has made several appearances as "Grandma Betty" on Fox's The War at Home.
[edit] Biography
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Gillette studied at the Peabody Conservatory and came to Broadway when she was a teenager, making her debut in Gypsy. Her first television appearance would come on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963. She would later join the cast of The Edge of Night in 1967, leaving the next year.
In lieu of these appearances, Gillette's biggest exposure during this period on a national scale came as a celebrity guest on various New York City-based game shows, mostly those produced by Goodson-Todman and Bob Stewart. Amongst many appearances, Gillette would serve as a semi-regular on the syndicated What's My Line? and on the various Pyramid series.
Gillette's roles in the 1970s included starring on the short lived Me and The Chimp with Ted Bessell and the similarly short lived TV version of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice with a then-unknown Robert Urich and, as her daughter, a young Jodie Foster. Returning to Broadway, Gillette would garner a Tony Award nomination and L.A Drama Critics Award for her work in 1977's Chapter Two, a role she held while commuting to Los Angeles where she had a role on Norman Lear's All That Glitters.
The 1980s marked Gillette's transition from Broadway and television into that of a character film actress. Prior to this transition, she had sizeable television roles as Nancy Baxter on the first season of the national run of The Baxters, W. Emily Hanover on the last season of Quincy M.E., and a role on Search for Tomorrow at the end of that series long run as well as the early David Chase series Almost Grown. During this period, Gillette was a regular on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
After the end of Search for Tomorrow in late 1986, Gillette transitioned to film with a variety of notable roles such as that of Mona in 1987's Moonstruck. Many of these roles have had her as an on-screen mother to characters played by notable actors such as Jennifer Aniston's mother in She's The One, Mary Louise Parker's mother in Boys On The Side, Bill Murray's mother in Larger Than Life, Jack Black's mother in Bob Roberts, and the mother of Bobby Cannavale's love interest in The Guru. Her return to television in 2000s short-lived Normal, Ohio had her playing the mother of John Goodman's character (coincidentally with fellow former game show regular Orson Bean as her on-screen husband).
In the 1990s, Gillette starred in two Hallmark Hall of Fame movies, The Summer of Ben Tyler with Oscar nominee James Woods, and A Christmas Memory with Oscar winner Patty Duke.
[edit] Current career
In 2004, she charmed audiences in Shall We Dance?, opposite Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon. She portrayed Miss Mitzi, the lonely drunk, yet sweet, dance instructor at her struggling studio. Anita just finished filming Hiding Victoria, she stars in the film as Althea Jaffery.
