Grace Zabriskie
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Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1941, Grace Zabriskie is a character actress who has played small roles in many popular American films and television series. After making her major film debut in 1979's Norma Rae, Zabriskie went on to appear in dozens of other works, including the 1981 miniseries adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden, 1989's Drugstore Cowboy, the 1991 film adaptation of Fried Green Tomatoes and 1995's The Passion of Darkly Noon.
Zabriskie is perhaps most familiar, however, for her television work. After appearing in a recurring role on the soap opera Santa Barbara, she played a major role on the David Lynch series Twin Peaks and its spin-off film, Fire Walk With Me as Sarah Palmer, the eerily psychic mother of the doomed Laura Palmer. Zabriskie had previously appeared in Lynch's Wild at Heart — notably as the twin sister of a character played by Isabella Rossellini, an actress eleven years her junior. She was also chosen by David Lynch to appear as a sinister Polish neighbour in Inland Empire in 2006. Zabriskie may also be remembered as the actress who portrayed the long-suffering Mrs. Ross, a recurring character on the sitcom Seinfeld. In this series, Zabriskie again played the mother of a doomed woman — Susan Ross, George Costanza's fiancee, who dies from licking tainted envelopes. Zabriskie's character's husband on the show was played by her former Twin Peaks co-star Warren Frost.
Grace has at times worked in radio, collaborating with radio dramatist/monologist Joe Frank several times.
Zabriskie recently appeared in the American remake The Grudge, in which she played a senile grandmother sensitive to the paranormal occurrences in her home. She also stars in Big Love, an HBO drama series that seriously explores the issue of polygamy.
