We’ve grown up watching Judith Light on not one but two cultural touchstone TV series—Who’s the Boss? and Ugly Betty. At this point, can we just call her “mom”?

 

Light has captivated audiences worldwide since her portrayal of Angela Bower on the hit comedy series Who's the Boss? Her award-winning career has spanned a diversity of roles in television, theater and film. Light's television career began with her two-time Best Actress Emmy Award- winning turn as Karen Wolek on One Life to Live. In addition to her 2007 Emmy-nominated portrayal of Claire Meade on Ugly Betty, she can currently be seen on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, in the recurring role of Supreme Court Judge Elizabeth Donnelly. She has also starred in Phenom, The Stones and in over 15 television movies.

A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA, Light has worked in repertory theatres throughout the United States and Canada, as well as a USO Tour of Guys and Dolls with William Atherton and Paula Wagner throughout Europe. Her Broadway debut was in A Doll's House with Liv Ullmann, and was followed by a season at the Eugene O'Neil Playwright's conference. She returned to the New York theatre to do the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit for the MCC Theatre, where her performance won her the Helen Hayes and Eliot Norton Awards for Best Actress on the National Tour. Additionally she starred in Hedda Gabler, directed by Michael Kahn in Washington DC—for which she received a Helen Hayes Award nomination—Sorrows and Rejoicings, by Athol Fugard in New York at the Second Stage, in LA at The Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles Reprise! Broadways Best, in Stephen Sondheim's Company, and she joined the Ojai Playwrights Conference for their 2004 season. Light also appeared in MCC's production of Colder Than Here with Brian Murray, Lily Rabe and Sarah Paulson, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York for their 2005 season.

Light has starred in such independent films as The Shoemaker, with Danny Aiello, Ira & Abby (by Jennifer Westfeldt), with Robert Klein, Fred Willard, and Frances Conroy—which was voted Best Comedy at the 2007 HBO comedy festival—and in Save Me with Chad Allen and Robert Gant, a film which she also produced with her long-time manager/producer, Herb Hamsher.

Light is a Board Member and advocate for many organizations and charities representing AIDS-related and Human Rights issues, including Broadway Cares: Equity Fights AIDS, The Names Project/The AIDS Memorial Quilt, The AIDS Memorial Grove, CDC's Business Responds to AIDS/Labor Responds to AIDS, Hollywood Health and Society, Faith in America, Project Angel Food, The Matthew Shepard Foundation, The National Aids Memorial Grove, The Point Foundation, The Rome Chamber Music Festival and The Trevor Project.

Light lives in Los Angeles with her husband, writer/actor Robert Desiderio.