Wendie Malick (Actor)

Wendie Malick guest-stars on the show Til Death. (Photo: Fox)

A leggy, dark-haired actress who spent years playing snotty, ice-cold, scheming or just plain tightly-wound ex-wives or mistresses, Wendie Malick has gradually moved on to a greater variety of roles. After a long, award-winning run as Brian Benben's ex-wife Judith—whose life always seemed to be perfect—on HBO's "Dream On" (1990-96), she finally landed a role on a hit show, as Nina Van Horn, the pretentious former model turned magazine editor, on "Just Shoot Me" (NBC, 1997-2003).

The Buffalo native began her career in summer stock musicals and in way off-Broadway productions. In an attempt to gain some financial stability, Malick spent several years working as a model throughout Europe and Asia. Returning to Manhattan, she landed roles in off-Broadway shows as well as the recurring role of Claire Lowell, the woman who stole Allie's husband, on numerous episodes of CBS' "Kate & Allie" beginning in 1985. After relocating to California, Malick began landing parts on several series. In 1989-90, she had a recurring parts as David Hasselhoff's bitter ex-wife on "Baywatch" (NBC) and as Richard Lewis' girlfriend on "Anything But Love" (ABC). During the first season of ABC's "NYPD Blue", she made memorable appearances as a socialite for whom Detective Kelly (David Caruso) moonlights as a bodyguard. After a failed 1996 sitcom (CBS' "Good Company"), Malick hit pay dirt as the self-centered, sexy Nina on "Just Shoot Me". Her deft comic timing and interplay with co-stars George Segal, Laura San Giacomo and David Spade helped to make the show a modest hit.

Malick's feature film work has been more sporadic. After debuting in "A Little Sex" (1981), she was featured in "Scrooged" (1988), and played a woman on a train who encounters the sexuality of Benjamin Siegel in "Bugsy" (1991). Malick was Susan Sloan, the too-serious environmental lobbyist who accompanies Annette Bening to her first White House visit in "The American President" (1995) and voiced the patient wife of a peasant in the Disney animated "The Emperor's New Groove" (2000). In 2002, Malick received her second Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series for her role as Nina Van Horn in the NBC comedy "Just Shoot Me". After a small role in the low-budget “Manna From Heaven” (2002), she appeared in human form as the intolerable owner of a race track in the combination live-action and animated family comedy “Racing Stripes” (2005) before landing her next series, the John Stamos comedy "Jake in Progress" (ABC, 2005 - ), playing Naomi, the hard-edged head of a Manhattan p.r. firm whose impending motherhood threatens to soften her.