Stephanie Hodge

A brash stand-up comic turned sitcom lead, Stephanie Hodge first caught the attention of TV audiences as the cynical Sandy Miller in the NBC sitcom "Nurses." Series creator Susan Harris created the role specifically for the comic, who was on the show for two years (1991-93) before being unceremoniously fired when the network wanted to add Loni Anderson as the show's lead. Hodge rebounded as the taskmaster wife and mother (whose character was briefly a ghost) on The WB sitcom "Unhappily Ever After" on which she appeared from 1995 to 1998.

Raised in a Quaker family in Ohio, Hodge began her career in comedy clubs and at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. She stayed in Minnesota until 1986, when she headed to Los Angeles. It was while she was performing at Igby's, a comedy club in West Los Angeles, that she got what might have been her first break--a holding deal with NBC. But the deal yielded little but a role supporting Nell Carter in the unsold pilot "Morton's By the Bay" (1989). Still, with her looks that can alternate between sweetly All-American or brassy, Hodge soon found steady work as both a stand-up and an actress. In 1990, she landed her first regular series role as Loretta Devine's friend on the short-lived CBS sitcom "Sugar and Spice." Hodge later served as co-host with Cynthia Stevenson on the critically-praised but low-rated syndicated series "My Talk Show" (1990). When NBC fired her, she found a haven at rival CBS where she headlined the summer sitcom "Muddling Through" (1994), playing Connie Drago, a tough-talking paroled con before finding success on the fledgling The WB.