Overview
Grace Zabriskie (née Caplinger; born May 17, 1941) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Sarah Palmer in Twin Peaks (1990–1991; 2017) and its film prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Lois Henrickson in Big Love, as well as in cult films such as two of David Lynch's films: Juana Durango in Wild at Heart (1990) and Visitor #1 in Inland Empire (2006). Other film roles include Norma Rae (1979), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Nickel Mountain (1984), (1986), Leonard Part 6 (1987), Drugstore Cowboy (1989), Child's Play 2 (1990), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), Armageddon (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), and The Grudge (2004). She is also known for her recurring roles on such shows as Seinfeld (as George's fiancée Susan's mother), Charmed, and Ray Donovan.
Early life
Zabriskie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Marion Grace (née Zabriskie), of Wyckoff, New Jersey, and Roger Thomas "Tom" Caplinger. Her mother had distant Polish and Dutch ancestry, and was a relative of James Zabriskie, a 19th-century railroad industrialist and early pioneer of California. Zabriskie has said that her family was visited by Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal and Truman Capote during her childhood. Her father owned the famous French quarter gay bar Cafe Lafitte in Exile.
In the early 1960s, Zabriskie was among a circle of Kerry Thornley's New Orleans friends. At one point, Thornley began work on a novel about her titled Can Grace Come Out and Play? Thornley later claimed to have had an "eight-year-long, off-again-on-again, affair/friendship/rivalry/ego-game/karmic unraveling" with her, but Zabriskie described it as "four and a half minutes in bed" after a discussion on the exclusion of sex from their friendship—shared with Zabriskie's then-husband Rob—as being "irrational".
Her sister, Lane Caplinger, worked as a typist in New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's office. Caplinger is reputed to have covertly produced all five copies of the first edition of the Principia Discordia in 1965.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).