Long before Transparent, for which she's now Emmy-nominated for her work as Shelly Pfefferman, Judith Light was a soap star when soaps were a much bigger deal than they are now. Playing Karen Wolek on One Life To Live, she won two Daytime Emmys and became known for a devastating performance in a courtroom scene in which Karen was forced to acknowledge publicly that although she was married to a doctor, she was secretly also a sex worker. She later moved on to Who's The Boss, where she had a totally different role as Angela Bower, a working single mom who hired Tony Micelli (Tony Danza) as her housekeeper and nanny.
She also had significant roles on Ugly Betty and Law & Order: SVU, and she managed to win two Tony Awards along the way, for her performances in Other Desert Cities in 2012 and The Assembled Parties in 2013.
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