Is Judith Light a good actress?

It's really hard to separate the person from the craft here. But when you take away the activism, her endearing support of the gays, and the feeling you get that she's just this extremely decent person, how good of an actress is she? Why doesn't she make more movies?

Is Sally Kirkland a comparable actress to Ms. Light?

Judith was terrific on "Ugly Betty."

She was really good on One Life to Live.

Yes, I distinctly remember her very first day on One Life to Live. She had to jump into a controversial existing story line, replacing an actress who wouldn't have been able to do it well. Right from the get go she was memorable.

Her breakdown on the stand when she admits her crimes and shortcomings was devastating. She blew snot tears out of her nose, absolutely no ego, just raw emotion.

Love her.

Light is not a good actress. She has parlayed two facial expressions into a career because audiences no longer perceive good performances versus familiar faces.

She's terrible. TERRIBLE.

Hasn't she won two Tony's on Broadway?

She studied drama at CMU. Getting into the drama department at CMU is just as hard as a newbie getting an agent

Oh yes, yes. Karen Wolek was the shit in her day! Just because she is pimping flu vaccines nowadays does not change her formidable past. It was downhill from there, though. She does need a powerful vehicle for one last hurrah or series or hurrahs.

Subpar Q score, and the amount of teen fan mail she received was nothing to write home about.

She's geniunely, genuinely talented. Have seen her on stage and she's terrific. In the upper tier of performers I've seen.

It was a shock the first time, because Who's the Boss was beyond shit.

I do have to say I don't love her on Transparent. But on stage she's fantastic.

Sadly, R4 is correct. She is a nice person, but her acting is horrific.

She's ok. There are worse.

She’s usually very good, but she’s a weak link on Transparent.

Light is a brilliant actress. I'm embarrassed for some of you. Do those saying she's bad think she didn't deserve her Tonys for Other Desert Cities and The Assembled Parties??

Her performance in Other Desert Cities stays with me to this day. Goes to show some don't have any taste.

She strikes me as the hardworking type. She can be good. What was that cancer patient play? She was good in that.

I always hated "Who's The Boss," and for that alone she's a bad actress.

She's a decent actress in the same way that Sean Connery was a good actor. She is very charismatic, but there is always some of Judith Light coming nght through every role she plays.

I'll always love and admire her for the support she has shown over decades for the gays. She was a loud ally long before it was fashionable.

I saw her in Wit. She is good when it comes to playing normal people up against traumatic situations (Wit, OLTL) but I find her embarrassingly bad when she tries to be a diva villain.

She was horrible in Ugly Betty (made worse by going up against the perfectly cast, gorgeous Vanessa Williams) and the Dallas reboot (the role was an over-the-top nasty matriarch and she just couldn't sell it.)

I caught her in a Kojak episode pre-OLTL a few weeks back. Played a very Karen Wolek-ish role...nervous and always on edge wife of a cop. Her acting was insanely melodramatic. She was made for the theater and soaps, not for prime time TV. Who's the Boss was absolute garbage.

She's awful. UGLY BETTY? Light was terrible. She drags her emotionless face around, tries to look profound and tired, mumbles or grandstands, and then expects applause. Apparently all it takes to convince the fraus and low-end audiences that a woman is a good actress is consistent attitude. "I KNOW HER!" is the inevitable prelude to applause with such proles.

She's in the Linda Lavin/Bonnie Franklin league of TV lumps who made good because of face recognition. Yeah, they had jobs before TV, but those jobs didn't matter much.

She took over Linda Lavin's role in OTHER DESERT CITIES and was much better - she acted with the rest of the cast instead of separately from them like Lavin did.

However, I think Light has developed Bancroft's Disease - like the celebrated Anne, Light now tends to overplay Jewish female roles (THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES on Broadway and TRANSPARENT) which is all too easy to do. I recall seeing her in a film called SAVE ME where she played a woman who runs an ex-gay therapy "ranch" with her husband. Chad Allen played a screwed up young gay man who decides to try the therapy. Light was wonderful in the role, so she most certainly has talent.

[quote]She had to jump into a controversial existing story line, replacing an actress who wouldn't have been able to do it well.

Karen was originated in 1976 by an actress named Kathryn Breech, who seems to have never had another acting role after this. About a year into the role, she took ill (reportedly because she was renegotiating her contract) and was replaced by ... [italic]Julia Duffy![/italic] She was only in the role for a few months when JL was brought in.

There's got to be some working actresses in the industry. We can't all be magnificent divas. And we do need support.

I think Light is an excellent actress but she's like Faye Dunaway, who is also a strong actress but they both have the ability to chew the scenery and need to be reigned in by a good director.

I thought Light was way over the top in the Dallas reboot.

Did she hook up with Tony Danza on that sitcom Who the Boss?

Unless Light has a dick like Ken Ryker's, I doubt she hooked up with Tony Danza.

I love Judith. She's a great actress. She was a little over-the-top in Dallas but I still loved it.

Golly, so now you're accusing Tony Danza of not being straight?

She was the best thing about L&O:SVU during her stint there.

She tried to seduce my husband and for that I will never forgive her!

I like her a lot. Even in Transparent, in which "Shelly" is a somewhat thankless role.

John Lithgow is a good actor

The worst actress in history.

She's an Oscar away from the Triple Crown of Acting, or do the Daytime Emmys not count?

She was eminently fuckable back in the day, and I'm thrilled that she's been a supporter of gays all these years. And as for her acting, I stumbled onto Transparent by accident without knowing anything about it, and I didn't realize it was her until the end of the episode -- and then I was so shocked you could have knocked me over with a feather.

Now that's acting.

What [R10] said- I saw her a few years ago on Broadway with Keira Knightley in Theresa Raquin. She WIPED THE FLOOR with KK. I was shocked. She's a bit before my time so my only point of reference was "Who's the Boss." But she gave her character such a sad, beautiful arc. In the first act, she's kind of an annoying old bat-the typical loud and overbearing mother in law. But Act 2 rolls around and she had such haunted stillness about her. Her son has died and she's totally hollowed out by it.

She has clearly had excellent training. Knows how to modulate her voice, knows how to use her body, listening, inflections, stillness- it's all there. Keira was serviceable but really started to recede into the background by the second act because you just couldn't take your eyes of Judith. She was the pure embodiment of a grieving mother's broken heart.

IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR, MR. CALLISON?!?!?!?!?!?!

She has descended into stereotype and caricature on TRANSPARENT. She also looks anorexic in the latest series.

Yet I loved her in SAVED, made 10 years ago. She gave an amazing performance.

She is criminally underrated, but her consecutive Tony Award wins in recent years (a record) suffice as respect deserved of a truly great actress, in any medium.

Jokes aside, her performance on DALLAS as the coked-dealing madam supreme was Helen Lawson-level brilliant camp.

Delectable.

You have a good look. How are you at romancing men?

Didn't she have a fling with either Anthony George or Lee Patterson when she was doing OLTL? I forgot which one. Are she and Strassman still great friends?

She never phoned in a performance.

She called me an AIDS infested homo

Well clearly she caused confusion as to who the boss actually is, so that’s gotta count for something.

She and Priscilla Presley were mean to me.

Great actress and person, too.

Judith was heartbreaking as Marilyn Miglin in "The Assassination of Gianni Versace." It not only was the best performance on that show, it was the best single TV performance I saw that entire year--I was stunned when she did not win the Emmy.

IMO, Judith Light a very good actress

Soap opera acting is so odd and mannered it's almost like the American equivalent of Kabuki theater--I can't judge a performance from a soap opera for that reason.

No, she's not. She's not a nice person either.

She was really, really good on Transparent. The scene at the end of Season 3, after a year of begging for her kids to notice or support her, is fabulous. Shelly does the thing they all teased her about doing and she fucking kills it, and it is beautiful to see.

Light played Shelly really well - very contained for her, sometimes a bit extra but not scene chewing OTT. She had to be strong to compete on that show, a pit of narcisssism.

I liked her on Ugly Betty a lot too, though they didn't seem to know much what to do with her after the first year or so. She was at her best against Vanessa Williams.

She made her role on Dallas fun - it was already ludicrous that she was playing mother to Mitch Pileggi, so she just ran with the crazy.

Her Bway work is unparalleled.

SO YES, BITCH, JUDY IS A GOOD ACTRESS....NAY, A GREAT ONE!

Major pussy hound, big Bush supporter.

She my be a good actress but I have a much better hole

Two competitive Tony Awards, two Dram Desk wins, two Daytime Emmys, four Primetime Emmy noms, three Critics' Choice noms ... I'd say she's pretty darn good.

I really like her. She was very good in her comedic turn in The Politician. Plus she's a HUGE gay rights proponent and was right on the front lines during the AIDS epidemic. If I'm looking for options on Netflix or Amazon and see that she's in something, I always watch it.

Don and Mike the shock jocks used to say she had "coffee cake" hair.

I absolutely loved her and Mitch Pileggi in the Dallas reboot. They made that show after Larry Hagman died and could have carried it had it not been cancelled.

The bitch shot my tape deck while I was listening to The Beach Boys in the OR.

[quote] Plus she's a HUGE gay rights proponent and was right on the front lines during the AIDS epidemic.

Renting my ass out by the hour isn't pro-gay

R66: You just know they are waiting for him to croak before they “discover” the cure for AIDS.

R45 I doubt it. They were both gay.

She most certainly is, Missy!

She was great on the 1993ish sitcom "Phenom" (episodes are on YouTube). She also played Ryan White's mother in a very moving TV movie around 1989.

[QUOTE] She also played Ryan White's mother in a very moving TV movie around 1989.

I remember seeing that when I was eleven years old and I was greatly affected by it. I still remember her performance.

R62 There's a blast from the past - Don and Mike!

I enjoyed her a lot in Dallas. It just wasn't Dallas. She played a different show. Not her fault. The show had lots of problems, not focusing on the Ewings was one of them. So I thought Lights character was out of place. But damn did I have a great time watching her chewing her scenes.

[quote] I always hated "Who's The Boss," and for that alone she's a bad actress.

Katherine Helmond was a good actress in everything outside of that, and time has been far kinder to [italic]Soap[/italic].

She's thought of in the industry as an excellent actress and a very hard worker.

And what are you basing that assumption on, R76?

I have a number of friends who are entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles and New York.

Judith Light's reputation is stellar according to them. Plus, she's an incredibly nice person. I've actually met her twice, and on one occasion had dinner with her and a number of others.

Based on actually watching her. She's the textbook definition of mediocrity. R77 is a liar.

I saw her on Broadway in her two Tony-winning performances. I thought she was excellent in both—wish I’d seen her in Wit, but Kathleen Chalfant was perfection in that. I don’t hold Who’s the Boss against her—girl’s gotta eat.

No R77, I am not.

Everything I said was entirely truthful.

If you personally don't care for her that's fine, and she may indeed be the very definition of "mediocrity" to you; however, that's your opinion and not the opinion of everyone else.

Love her, love everything about her, thinking about being her for Halloween.

I take it back. She’s not the definition of mediocrity. She’s just plain awful, and her “activism” has an ulterior motive to it. Notice how she is rarely seen with homosexuals who aren’t dead or dying. At least in the Chad Allen movie, they paired her with a gay man who can actually act.

R83 has for some unknown reason been T R I G G E R E D ! ! ! !

R83 is not pleased with Ms. Light.

Unfunny meme is unfunny. It figures that is the sort of dull tripe you would use.

Who's the Boss is coming to Antenna TV in September. Let's all watch it, all 8 seasons!

No, let’s watch The Golden Girls on DVD instead since they are actually funny.

That is in addition to displaying the same racism that made this no-talent white woman famous undeservedly.

R87 is pandering to the same racist white queens like the one described in this thread:

My observations have been said upthread, but I clicked to say them both, and damn it, Talbot Huddleston, I'm going to say it:

Judith Light gave a genius-level camp performance on that weird Dallas reboot.

Her scenes on the stand are raw and not everyone's cup of tea, but the lead up of that story featured sustained excellence (often subtle) in which she was better than everyone in her scenes (including Erika Slezak) without ever stealing focus.

She is a magnificent stage performer, and though I hated that production of Therese Raquin, she utterly mopped the floor with Keira Knightley and the forgettable other lead.

She commits. She never phones anything in. She's a treasure.

She was the weak link in the [italic]Dallas[/italic] reboot and she is the reason it ended. Nobody wanted to see the show go on without JR and with her.

R94, from what I read in lots of threads and other forums she was one reason why people still watched Dallas' last season. Because the Ryland's, she and the son, made such a great impression, some asked for them to get their own spin-off.

[quote] she's an incredibly nice person.

Some say that makes all the difference.

I would rather take my chances with Bonnie Franklin and Linda Lavin.

Bonnie Franklin was laughably bad on The Young and the Restless.

Whereas Judith Light has never made me laugh or even smile.

I wish that clip of Judith on Live with Kelly was still around. I always get a chuckle out of Judith putting Kelly in her place for that gaffeYou just know after that show Kelly went on a rampage stating she will never be invited as a guest on there again.

She was great in Versace... (sp?)

She played the denial that her husband was gay beautifully.

As my crush's current spouse does.

She should have won the Emmy that year for Versace. She was utterly superb.

She’s a million years old.

R102, this was the gist...

Kelly Ripa mentioned Judith Light was heading to Israel this year with her child but Light took offense almost immediately seeing as she has no children. Kelly started backtracking and stammering and apologized while staring and shuffling through her blue cheater cards and said her friend is taking her kids to Israel and she got the two mixed up. Judith replied I’m this dismissive manner stating “We’re not going at the same time as we are two different people,”

She doesn’t deserve an Emmy when Katherine Helmond never won one.

Did they ever figure out who the boss was?

Nobody cares, R107. Either way, since the answer will inevitably be somebody white, that makes the show racist in both conception and execution.

Judith Light is talented in comedic roles. She's good live on stage on Broadway too. Very convincing performances.

No, she isn't. She's barely passable in drama, and I'm not just saying this because her sitcom sucked. I gave her plenty of chances considering how much I loved [italic]Soap[/italic] the moment I first watched it, but she leaves me cold. Ice cold. Absolute zero. "Frigid" doesn't even begin to describe her. Do you really believe Tony fucking Danza, who is built like a dump truck, would take any interest in anyone as boring and unpleasant as her? In real life, he would probably end up with some Gina from New Jersey who could never make it higher than receptionist.

Judith Light is a fantastic actress, but I think does far better in dramatic roles than in comedy. Someone mention that her acting could be "hammy" at times and while I agree, that stems from the fact that she was trained as a theater actress. Theater actors tend to be strong actors (particularly in character roles) but their acting techniques don't always translate as well on screen. Theater requires an actor to remove an audience from the reality of their surrounding, while TV and Film acting is more grounded and lower key. Kate Mulgrew is an actor similar to Judith Light in terms of acting style. A fantastic actress but who tends to ham it up.

Please tell me there is a subset of fans who hate that terrible thing she wasted 8 years of her life on.

Who's the Boss starts on Antenna TV on October 8. I'm going to watch every epusode. Who's with me?

He hurt gay people. He doesn't deserve to be gay. Anyone who watches that show has blood on their hands.

I would rather watch [italic]Amos 'n' Andy[/italic] than subject myself to one second of that dire, dreary, fascist bilge.

This is how shitty fucking shows like that avoid cancellation.

R114 and 115, what exactly is your problem with the show?

R117, you have baby tastes.

Everything. It's not funny, the subtext is more racist and sexist than ANYTHING else Embassy ever pulled out of its collective asshole, and it's full of actors who are either miscast, wasted, or just plain bad.

It's like the same principle behind [italic]Springtime for Hitler[/italic] lead to creating a TV series.

R119, well, I'll be the judge of that when I watch every episode on Antenna TV starting October 8! Winning!

R120, the more defensive you get, the more desperate you sound.

You are literally retarded if you think this show is anything but a stupid piece of shit. And you know goddamn well that it ripped off [italic]Gimme A Break![/italic] so that makes it both racist AND antisemitic since light-skinned Jews will gladly steal from a black Jewish lesbian.

Thanks to Scamazon Slime, she's now got TWO of the worst TV shows ever to answer for, and one that also poses an existential threat to gays.

'80s sitcoms are awesome. I love Who's the Boss. Where did the family live in Connecticut?

R124 I don’t get the acclaim for Transparent. I could barely get through 2 episodes. Terrible writing and acting (Tambor excepted)

Judith Light is a good actress. Earlier posters mentioned the overacting to be theatre training, they are correct.

Theatrical training doesn't impress me when this is the end result.

Who's The Boss? probably paid her bills (though she's not set for life, since sitcoms only started making actors mega wealthy with Friends, Home Improvement, Seinfeld and since then). I think there's a fair point here that it set her career back, as she was never bad on it, but she wasn't all that funny, and the show was mostly light fare that was elevated by the other actors (ok, not necessarily Danny Pintauro!).

Had she been Brynn Thayer or Kathy Glass or even the vaunted Erika Slezak, we wouldn't be talking about her this way now, because the sitcom would have ensured she got other TV gigs (mostly guest, possible series regulars) as long as she wanted to work. Those OLTL actors were excellent, but never destined to become big stars or win awards outside daytime (unless Slee won a Clio for her prune commercial).

Judith Light took a while to start getting the right opportunities, but once she did, she shined. Two Tonies. Should have won an Emmy for her Marilyn Miglin in the Versace series. She absolutely can ham it up, but when you watch Transparent and Dallas in the same moment, you see a wonderfully versatile actress making choices. She's never playing a brand of herself. She's the real deal.

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