Mimi Kennedy - Actress

Mimi Kennedy

Mimi Kennedy Headshot

Actress

Birth Name: Mary Claire Kennedy

Birth Date: September 25, 1948

Age: 76 years old

Birth Place: Rochester, New York

A comic actress who also has excelled as steely, somewhat brittle women in dramas, Mimi Kennedy has been through the network TV wars, appearing in numerous short-lived series while building a reputation as a fine performer. She first won notice playing Jan in the Broadway musical "Grease" and by 1977 joined Debbie Allen and Ellen Foley as "Three Girls Three" (NBC), a critically-praised but short-lived program which was part variety, part sitcom. But it started Kennedy on the series path. She appeared in a supporting role in "Stockard Channing in Just Friends" (CBS, 1979) and was a regular on the short-lived variety program "The Big Show" (NBC, 1980). Kennedy went on to win praise as the career woman who hires Peter Cook to tidy up in the CBS series "The Two of Us" (1981-1982) and as mother to Chad Lowe's teen with tribulations "Spencer" (NBC, 1984-1985) She was married to Richard Libertini in "Family Man" (ABC, 1988) and was sister-in-law to Peter Onorati in "Joe's Life" (ABC, 1993).

Moving to drama, Kennedy had a recurring role on the CBS primetime soaps "Knots Landing," for which she was also a writer and story editor. She scored as the proper, bigoted Ruth Sloan in the cult hit "Homefront" (CBS, 1991-93) and played a variation on the role as a snobbish socialite in "Savannah" (The WB, 1996-97). Returning to sitcoms, Kennedy was cast as the mother of a free-spirited woman who marries a blueblood in the highly touted sitcom "Dharma & Greg" (ABC, 1997-2002).

While her TV-movie work began with "Thin Ice" (CBS, 1981), Kennedy is better recalled as the wife and mother of a practical joking family who finds the joke is on them in "Mr. Boggedy" (ABC, 1986), and its 1987 sequel. She also portrayed Patricia Kennedy Lawford in the miniseries "Robert Kennedy and His Times" (CBS, 1985). Her work in feature films has been limited. She did not begin appearing on the big screen until "Chances Are" (1989) and subsequently was mother to Harrison Mohr in "Immediate Family" (1989), and had small roles in "Pump Up the Volume" (1990), "Death Becomes Her" (1992) and "Buddy" (1997). In 1996, Kennedy published a memoir, "Taken to the Stage: The Education of an Actress," about working her way through casting couches and auditions to "working" status.

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Credits

MomStream

Actor
Marjorie
Series
2013

The Five-Year EngagementStream

Actor
Carol Solomon
Movie
2012
64%

Midnight in ParisStream

Actor
Helen
Movie
2011
93%

In the LoopStream

Actor
Karen Clarke
Movie
2009
94%

Dharma & Greg

Actor
Abby O'Neill
Series
1997

Homefront

Actor
Ruth Sloan
Series
1991
67%

Sins of the MotherStream

Actor
Karen Turner
Movie
1991

Pump up the Volume

Actor
Marla Hunter
Movie
1990
79%

The Twilight Zone

Actor
Series
1985