Alison La Placa

With comic timing and pliability most actors crave, brunette Alison LaPlaca seemingly bounced from sitcom to sitcom for more than a decade. While not all the series in which she appeared were successful, she was adored by the critics and audiences.

LaPlaca's first TV work came soon after she moved to Hollywood, with a bit in the TV-movie "Listen to Your Heart" (CBS, 1983) followed by the role of assistant to "Suzanne Pleshette is Maggie Briggs" (CBS, 1984), a quick flop.

In 1986, LaPlaca was cast as the astringent hyper-yuppie, Linda Phillips in the Fox sitcom "Duet." When the show was canceled, the network resurrected some of the characters in "Open House," with LaPlaca's real estate-selling Linda the first one cast. Yet, the show flopped again, and in 1991, LaPlaca found herself in "Stat," an ABC sitcom set at a trauma center.

A year later, she was cast as Tom Arnold's assistant on the short-lived ABC sitcom "The Jackie Thomas Show." When Arnold tried a second sitcom, "Tom" (CBS, 1993), he brought along LaPlaca to play his wife, but that also failed. LaPlaca seemed to have found a secure job, as Catherine Merrick, nurse, neighbor, and on-again, off-again love interest to John Larroquette in "The John Larroquette Show" (NBC, 1994-96), but she left the series after only two seasons.

LaPlaca's feature film work has been more sporadic. After a bit part in "Fletch" (1985), she co-starred with Larroquette and Kirstie Alley in the middling comedy "Madhouse" (1990), as Claudia, a woman used to luxury whose vengeful husband cuts off her credit.