Julia Duffy is an American actress, best known for playing Stephanie Vanderkellen
on the sitcom Newhart. For this role, she received seven Emmy Award
nominations and a 1988 Golden Globe Award nomination. The role also won her
three Viewers for Quality Television awards. She is also notable for playing
the original Maggie Campbell on Baby Talk and Allison Sugarbaker on Designing
Women. Career
Duffy was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her early career included
parts in soap operas such as One Life to Live, The Doctors and Love of Life.
Duffy also appeared in movies such as Night Warning and Cutter's Way. She made
an appearance on the television sitcom Cheers during the show's first season in
1982; she had been considered for the role of Diane Chambers, the sitcom's
female lead. In 1983, she played Princess Ariel
Baaldorf in the medieval spoof Wizards and Warriors, which had a short run on
the CBS television network. Duffy joined the main cast of the sitcom
Newhart during its second season in 1983. She had initially made an
appearance in the fourteenth episode of the first season of the series, playing
the part of Dick Loudon's self-infatuated preppy maid Stephanie
Vanderkellen. It is perhaps her most popular role and one she played for
seven seasons. She earned Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting
Actress in a Comedy Series for the role every year from 1984 through 1990. She
also received a Golden Globe nomination and won three Viewers For Quality
Television Awards for her work. Julia was actually pregnant during several
episodes of Newhart. To hide it, she wore baggy clothes and stood behind
furniture. After the end of Newhart in 1990, Duffy
briefly starred in the sitcom Baby Talk alongside George Clooney, but because of
her low ratings, the series was retooled and Duffy was replaced by Mary Page
Keller. She worked again with Clooney some years later in the Coen Brothers'
comedy Intolerable Cruelty. In 1991, she joined the cast of Designing Women,
essentially replacing Delta Burke, the show's breakout star, who was fired
after quarrels with producers. Duffy played Allison Sugarbaker, Burke and
Dixie Carter's previously unseen cousin on the show. Duffy's tenure on the
sitcom's sixth season turned out to be the highest-rated season in the show's
history, partly because of the highly publicized cast additions of Duffy and
Jan Hooks. However, because of the negative public and critical backlash to
the snobbish portrayal of Duffy's character on the series, she was
released from her contract and she was not asked to return for the show's
seventh and final season, thus leading her to be replaced by Judith Ivey.
From 1993 to 1995, Duffy played Barb Ballantine on the short-lived comedy
series The Mommies. Duffy played Lindsay Mercer, one of the failed buyers of
Winfred-Lauder and the ex-wife of "Lord Mercer" on The Drew Carey Show. She has
a recurring role on the Nickelodeon series Drake & Josh as Linda Hayfer, a
high school English teacher who despises Drake. She appeared on The Suite Life of
Zack & Cody as the rich mother of Jason, a boy who goes on a date with Maddie
Fitzpatrick. She made a brief appearance in the
Nickelodeon sitcom True Jackson, VP as the owner of a stage that LuLu wanted to
rent. On September 19, 2014 Julia appeared on
Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor Podcast.
Personal life Duffy graduated from The American
Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1972. She has been married since 1984 to
actor Jerry Lacy, co-star of Dark Shadows and Love of Life, and has 2
children, Kerry Kathleen and Daniel. They live in Los Angeles.
Filmography References
External links Julia Duffy at the Internet Movie
Database