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Home , Ann Magnuson, Carla Espinosa, Doris Roberts, John Ortiz, Judy Reyes, Sam Rockwell

CAST BIOS

DORIS ROBERTS (Ruth) – Doris Roberts has been nominated for 11 Emmys®, winning the award five times – four times for her comedic turn in the popular series “” and once for a guest-starring role in the acclaimed drama “St. Elsewhere.” A three-time winner of the Viewers for Quality Television Award, she has also been recognized as one of the five actresses of the year (2001) by the and, in 2003, earned a star on the Walk of Fame.

Roberts made her Broadway debut in 1955 in William Saroyan’s classic . Her other theater credits include The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Desk Set and , for which she won an Outer Critics Circle Award.

Coaxed by to join “The Lily Tomlin Comedy Hour,” Roberts began a thriving career in television. In addition to several series regular roles, including “,” she guest starred in countless comedies and dramas such as “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” “,” “Soap,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Walker, Texas Ranger” and “.” She also starred in the TV movies “Ruby & Oswald,” “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “A Letter to Three Wives,” “Blind Faith” and “A Time to Heal,” among many others.

Roberts’ many feature film credits include “Something Wild,” “A Lovely Way to Die,” “A New Leaf,” “The Heartbreak Kid,” “The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three,” “Hester Street,” “Rabbit Test,” “The Rose,” “,” Granma’s Boy” and the upcoming “Keeping Up with the Steins.”

A founder and active supporter of Children Affected by AIDS and Puppies Behind Bars, Roberts is also a fighter for the rights of fellow actors who battle against in the business. In 2002, she made international headlines when she testified before U.S. Senator John Breaux’s Special Committee on Ageism in Washington, D.C. stating, “Gentlemen, if you were in my business, you would be out of a job.”

In her autobiography, Are You Hungry, Dear? published in March 2003, Roberts takes her signature line from “Everybody Loves Raymond” and makes it her own, pairing hilarious stories and dramatic turning points from her fascinating life with delicious recipes from her kitchen.

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HALLMARK CHANNEL / ‘OUR HOUSE’ -- Cast Bios – Page 2

JUDY REYES (Billy) – Born and raised in , Judy Reyes always longed to sing. After attending , she made acting her primary focus and landed her first major role in the independent feature “Jack and His Friends,” opposite . She went on to found LAByrinth Theatre Company, a multi-cultural acting space in , with , Sam Rockwell, and Lauren Velez, among others.

For the past five seasons, Reyes has been entertaining audiences as the sassy, no- nonsense nurse Carla Espinosa on “,” which received an Emmy® nomination in 2005 for “Best Comedy.”

Pulling double duty, Reyes not only starred in but also produced the “Glow Ropes: The Rise and Fall of a Bar Mitzvah Emcee,” with her husband, Edwin M. Figueroa. “Glow Ropes” recently won the “Best Film” award at the 2005 HBO New York Latino Film Festival.

While filming “Scrubs,” Reyes lives in but frequently returns to her native New York.

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ELLEN GEER (Rose) - Daughter of Will Geer, Ellen Geer was born in New York and, even at an early age, was raised on a healthy dose of Shakespeare. She studied under Sir Tyrone Guthrie at the Guthrie theatre in Minneapolis, the American Conservatory Theatre in and the A.P.A. under the leadership of Ellis Rabb.

Twenty five years after its creation, Geer still stands as the artist director of the Will Geer Theatre, a theater workshop she and her father created in Topanga Canyon, . She also teaches graduate students at UCLA as well as classes at her Academy of the Classics.

Geer has appeared in such films as “Phenomenon,” “The Postman,” “Clear and Present Danger,” “Patriot Games” and “Harold and Maude,” to name a few. In addition she also wrote and produced the independent feature film “In Memory of Us” and directed “After Romeo.”

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ANN MAGNUSON (Geena) – Actress, singer, writer and performance artist, Ann Magnuson was born in West Virginia before moving to in 1978. There she ran the legendary and was a prominent figure in the downtown Manhattan art, music and performance scene. In the 1980s, Magnuson was a singer/song writer for the experimental rock band Bongwater.

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Magnuson is best known to television audiences for her work on ABC’s “Anything but Love.” Her other television appearances include roles in “From the Earth to the Moon,” “,” “Caroline in the City,” “The John Larroquette Show,” and her own special “Vandemonium.”

Her film credits include “The Panic Room,” “Clear and Present Danger,” “Making Mr. Right,” “Desperately Seeking Susan” and “The Hunger.”

Magnuson has written for Spin, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Paper magazines and recently performed her new one-woman show Rave Mom at New York City’s P.S. 122.

--HALLMARK CHANNEL--