Anita
Gillette is a Tony Award nominated actress whose prolific career covers over
four decades from Broadway and major motion pictures, celebrity guest
appearances on various classic game shows, and hit television series including
a recurring role as Margaret Lemon, Tina Fey’s Mother, on 30 Rock
Making her Broadway debut in the landmark
original stage musical Gypsy starring Ethel Merman, Anita Gillette’s extensive
list of Broadway credits in hit shows nclude Carnival!, All American, Mr.
President, Guys and Dolls, Don’t Drink the Water, Cabaret, They’re Playing Our
Song, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Chapter Two for which she was nominated for a
Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. This performance also won an LA Drama
Critic’s award. Still active on the New York stage, Ms. Gillette co-starred
opposite Jamie Farr in the Off-Broadway comedy Flamingo Court and more recently
In the hit Off-Broadway production of Love, Loss And What I Wore.
Audiences will recognize Ms. Gillette from
the hit series Quincy M.E. playing opposite Jack Klugman. Other recurring roles
included CSI, where she appeared as Marge Helgenberger’s Mom as well as Cold Case
and Law & Order SVU. Her early television appearances include The Ed
Sullivan Show and the popular daytime drama Search For Tomorrow. Early series
included Me and The Chimp with Ted Bessell, Bob & Carol & Ted &
Alice with Robert Urich and a young Jodie Foster, as well as Norman Lear’s All
That Glitters..Soon came other hit shows such as The Baxters. During this time
Ms. Gillette made regular appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Gaining great notoriety on a national scale,
Ms. Gillette appeared as a celebrity guest on multiple episodes of several
extremely successful television game shows such as What’s My Line?, Match Game
and The $25,000 Pyramid, among others.
Audiences will immediately recognize Anita
Gillette from her extensive film credits which include fun roles such as Mona,
the mistress of Vincent Gardenia, in Moonstruck starring Cher, Nicolas Cage and
Olympia Dukakis, and as Miss Mitzi, the lonely alcoholic owner of a struggling
dance studio in Shall We Dance? opposite Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez and Susan
Sarandon. Other projects include She’s The One with Jennifer Aniston, Boys On
The Side with Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore, & Mary Louise Parker, Larger
Than Life, with Bill Murray, Bob Roberts with Jack Black, and The Guru with
Bobby Cannavale.
Ms. Gillette moves back and forth easily
between feature films and television with a variety of great shows such as Mad
About You with Helen Hunt, Frasier with Kelsey Grammar, Normal Ohio with John
Goodman and fellow former game show regular Orson Bean, as well as Hallmark
Hall of Fame movies The Summer of Ben Tyler with James Woods, and A Christmas
Memory with Patty Duke. Guest appearances on other hit series include Sex and
the City with Sarah Jessica Parker, and The War at Home.
