Judith Ryland is Harris Ryland's controlling and authoritative mother. Her smile is 74 years of practiced social graces and thinly veiled contempt for anyone she considers beneath her. She has helped raised her granddaughter Emma in a sheltered world and will do anything to protect the ones she loves from the Ewing family.
Judith Light is an award-winning actress who has earned praise for performance on television, in film and on stage. In 2012, she was awarded the prestigious Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for her performance in Other Desert Cities. The previous year, Light was nominated for a Tony for her performance in Lombardi, Eric Simpson's play based on David Maraniss' best-selling biography, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi. In addition to her role on TNT's Dallas, Light will return to Broadway in a new Richard Greenberg play, The Assembled Parties, set to debut in April 2013.
Light's extensive television career began with her two-time Emmy-winning turn as Karen Wolek on One Life to Live. She then went on to play Angela Bower on the hit comedy series Who's the Boss? She was also seen on Ugly Betty, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Simultaneously, she played a recurring role on NBC's long-running drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Light has also starred in such series as Phenom, The Simple Life and The Stones. She has more than 15 television movies to her credit, including her role as Ryan White's mother, Jeanne, in The Ryan White Story.
A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Light has worked in repertory theaters throughout the United States and Canada, as well as on a USO Tour of Guys and Dolls, with William Atherton and Paula Wagner. Light's 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. Additional stage credits include roles in Laura Wade's Colder Than Here at The MCC Theatre in New York; Stephen Sondheim's Company at the Freud Theatre in Los Angeles; Athol Fugard's Sorrows and Rejoicings at the Second Stage Theatre in New York and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler at The Shakespear Theater in Washington, D.C.; and Derek Anson Jones' WIT at the Union Square Theater, which was followed by a touring production that earned Light the Helen Hayes Award in Washington, D.C. and the Elliot Norton Award in Boston.
On the big screen, Light has starred in the independent films The Shoemaker, with Danny Aiello; Ira & Abby, with Robert Klein, Fred Willard and Frances Conroy, which was voted Best Comedy at the 2007 HBO Comedy Festival; and Save Me, with Chad Allen and Robert Gant, a film which she also produced with Herb Hamsher through their production company, Tetrahedron Productions.
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.
In July 2012, Light launched her own exclusive jewelry line, Judith Light Jewelry Collection. The line features statement cocktail rings and innovative, beautiful pieces inspired by nature.
Light currently splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. She is married to writer-actor Robert Desiderio.
Light's extensive television career began with her two-time Emmy-winning turn as Karen Wolek on One Life to Live. She then went on to play Angela Bower on the hit comedy series Who's the Boss? She was also seen on Ugly Betty, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Simultaneously, she played a recurring role on NBC's long-running drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Light has also starred in such series as Phenom, The Simple Life and The Stones. She has more than 15 television movies to her credit, including her role as Ryan White's mother, Jeanne, in The Ryan White Story.
A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Light has worked in repertory theaters throughout the United States and Canada, as well as on a USO Tour of Guys and Dolls, with William Atherton and Paula Wagner. Light's 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. Additional stage credits include roles in Laura Wade's Colder Than Here at The MCC Theatre in New York; Stephen Sondheim's Company at the Freud Theatre in Los Angeles; Athol Fugard's Sorrows and Rejoicings at the Second Stage Theatre in New York and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler at The Shakespear Theater in Washington, D.C.; and Derek Anson Jones' WIT at the Union Square Theater, which was followed by a touring production that earned Light the Helen Hayes Award in Washington, D.C. and the Elliot Norton Award in Boston.
On the big screen, Light has starred in the independent films The Shoemaker, with Danny Aiello; Ira & Abby, with Robert Klein, Fred Willard and Frances Conroy, which was voted Best Comedy at the 2007 HBO Comedy Festival; and Save Me, with Chad Allen and Robert Gant, a film which she also produced with Herb Hamsher through their production company, Tetrahedron Productions.
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.
In July 2012, Light launched her own exclusive jewelry line, Judith Light Jewelry Collection. The line features statement cocktail rings and innovative, beautiful pieces inspired by nature.
Light currently splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. She is married to writer-actor Robert Desiderio.
