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Birthday:
02-28-1948
(76 years)
Birthplace:
Queens, New York, USA
Biography
Mercedes J. Ruehl is an American screen, stage, and television actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, two Obie Awards, and two Outer Critics Circle Awards.
Her most acclaimed film role was in The Fisher King; her performance in the film earned her the 1991 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as an American Comedy Award, a Boston Society of Film Critics Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, and a Golden Globe.
Ruehl is known for her leading performance in the play Lost in Yonkers (1990) and supporting performance in the film The Fisher King (1991). Her other film credits include Big (1988), Married to the Mob (1988), Last Action Hero (1993), Roseanna's Grave (1997), and Hustlers (2019). She also played the mother of main character Vincent Chase in HBO's Entourage.
Her most acclaimed film role was in The Fisher King; her performance in the film earned her the 1991 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as an American Comedy Award, a Boston Society of Film Critics Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, and a Golden Globe.
Ruehl is known for her leading performance in the play Lost in Yonkers (1990) and supporting performance in the film The Fisher King (1991). Her other film credits include Big (1988), Married to the Mob (1988), Last Action Hero (1993), Roseanna's Grave (1997), and Hustlers (2019). She also played the mother of main character Vincent Chase in HBO's Entourage.
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The Fisher King
Act like Anne
event1991 star_border 7.3
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Two troubled men face their terrible destinies and events of their past as they join together on a mission to find the Holy Grail and thus to save themselves.
Doctors of the Dark Side
Act like Narrator
event2011 star_border 6.5
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Doctors of the Dark Side is the first feature length documentary about the pivotal role of physicians and psychologists in detainee torture. The stories of four detainees and the doctors involved in their abuse demonstrate how US Army and CIA doctors implemented the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and covered up signs of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Interviews with medical, legal and intelligence experts and evidence from declassified government memos document what has been called the greatest scandal in American medical ethics. Based on four years of research by Producer/Director Martha Davis, written by Oscar winning Mark Jonathan Harris, and filmed in HD by Emmy winning DP Lisa Rinzler, the film shows how the torture of detainees could not continue without the assistance of the doctors.
Big
Act like Mrs. Baskin
event1988 star_border 7.2
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When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big—he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight. But he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.
Married to the Mob
Act like Connie Russo
event1988 star_border 5.9
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Angela de Marco is fed up with her gangster husband's line of work and wants no part of the crime world. When her husband is killed for having an affair with the mistress of mob boss Tony "The Tiger" Russo, Angela and her son depart for New York City to make a fresh start. Unfortunately, Tony has set his sights upon Angela -- and so has an undercover FBI agent looking to use her to bust Tony.
A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story
Act like Sylvia Guerrero
event2006 star_border 5.6
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The story of Gwen Araujo, a transgender teen who was murdered in California in 2002.
The Minus Man
Act like Jane
event1999 star_border 5.4
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When the quiet and amiable Vann Siegert drifts into town, no one suspects the evil that lies beneath the surface. Despite his easy charm, Vann is merely a reflection of what those he encounters want him to be. Soon, as locals start to disappear, it becomes clear that an eerie subtraction is at work in the sleepy hamlet.
Another You
Act like Elaine
event1991 star_border 5.4
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George has been in a mental hospital for 3 years and is finally ready to go out into the real world again. Eddie Dash, a dedicated con-man, is supposed to keep him out of trouble, but when people begin to recognise George as a missing millionaire, Eddie wants to take advantage of the situation.
Last Action Hero
Act like Irene Madigan
event1993 star_border 6.5
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After his father's death, a young boy finds solace in action movies featuring an indestructible cop. Given a magic ticket by a theater manager, he is transported into the film and teams up with the cop to stop a villain who escapes into the real world.
Lost in Yonkers
Act like Bella Kurnitz
event1993 star_border 6.4
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In the summer of 1942 two young boys are sent to stay with their stern grandmother Kurnitz and their childlike aunt Bella in Yonkers, New York.
More Dogs Than Bones
Act like Victoria 'Vic' Galletti
event2000 star_border 4.5
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A series of mishaps and misfortunes over $1 million in cash leads to murder, mayhem and greed.
84 Charing Cross Road
Act like Kay
event1987 star_border 7.1
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When a humorous script-reader in her New York apartment sees an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature for a bookstore in London that does mail order, she begins a very special correspondence and friendship with Frank Doel, the bookseller who works at Marks & Co., 84 Charing Cross Road.
Crazy People
Act like Dr. Liz Baylor
event1990 star_border 5.8
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A bitter ad executive, who has reached his breaking point, finds himself in a mental institution, where his career actually begins to thrive with the help of the hospital's patients.
Roseanna's Grave
Act like Roseanna
event1997 star_border 6.6
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Roseanna is dying of a heart condition, and all she wants is to be buried next to her daughter, in a cemetery that is getting full fast. The cemetery can't expand because Capestro, the man who owns the land next to the cemetery, won't sell. While Marcello is doing good deeds to make sure no one dies, Roseanna thinks of Marcello's future.
Slaves of New York
Act like Samantha
event1989 star_border 5.7
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Meet the denizens of New York City: artists, prostitutes, saints, and seers. All are aspiring toward either fame or oblivion, and hoping for love and acceptance. Instead they find high rents, faithless partners, and dead-end careers.
Bad Apple
Act like Lorraine Gibbons
event2004 star_border 3.8
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Black Comedy about a undercover FBI agent in New York who falls for his informant's sister resulting in a deadly game between the criminals and cops.
Out of the Cold
Act like Tina
event1999
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An American entertainer and an Estonian woman are torn apart by hate and prejudice.
All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story
Act like Jane Newhall
event2000 star_border 4.1
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A teacher is arrested and jailed for raping her 13-year-old student, and twice gives birth to his child.
The Nana Project
Act like Nana
event2023 star_border 4.5
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Follows Helen "Nana" Lewis, a feisty chess master, and her grandsons, as they embark on a road trip to support her rise to state championships.
The Amati Girls
Act like Grace
event2001 star_border 2.5
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Four sisters who disagree about everything... except what matters most. Family.
Guilt by Association
Act like Susan Walker
event2002 star_border 5.4
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Life is good for Susan, her two children and new boyfriend Russell. But life abruptly changes when she discovers her perfect boyfriend is a drug dealer. Realising the danger this could bring to her family she tells him to leave. Suddenly her house is raided and Susan is arrested as a co-conspirator in Russell's drug business. Her situation goes from bad to worse when she finds herself behind bars with violent criminals. How will she ever prove her innocence when the system seems against her? Guilt By Association is a disturbing story based on true events.
On Hope
event1994
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On Hope is a 1994 short film directed by JoBeth Williams, with Annette O'Toole, Mercedes Ruehl, Ray Baker, and Veronica Cartwright. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.
The Lost Child
Act like Rebecca
event2000 star_border 6
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Knowing the past changes the future. Seeking a connection to her heritage, Rebecca Hoffman sets out on a journey of discovery following the deaths of her adoptive parents. She finds that connection with her birth family in the Navajo community. But cultures clash when her husband is rejected as an outsider. Rebecca and her family experience rebirth in a rich culture and renewal as a family in this dramatic film based on the autobiography Looking for Lost Bird by Yvette Melanson (with Claire Safran).
Disclosure
Act like Self (archive footage)
event2020 star_border 7.9
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An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
Chu and Blossom
Act like Mrs. Fefterg
event2014 star_border 4
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A militant performance-artist and a tall Korean foreign-exchange student become trapped in a small Southern town.
The Secret of My Success
Act like Sheila
event1987 star_border 6.5
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Brantley Foster, a well-educated kid from Kansas, has always dreamed of making it big in New York, but once in New York, he learns that jobs - and girls - are hard to get. When Brantley visits his uncle, Howard Prescott, who runs a multi-million-dollar company, he is given a job in the company's mail room.
Mom's On Strike
Act like Sandy
event1984
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An ABC (American Broadcasting Company) Afterschool Special, about an overworked housewife, who, as the title suggests, goes on strike, in order to persuade the rest of her family to share household chores.
Loving Leah
Act like Janice
event2009 star_border 7
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When Leah's husband Benjamin dies suddenly, Benjamin's brother Jake is stunned to learn he is expected to marry the childless Leah to carry on his brother's name. Jake suggests to Leah that they get married and maintain a secretly platonic relationship. The harder they try to disguise their "pretend" marriage, the more their appreciation for each other's worlds grow, and out of understanding, a real love develops.
Mom at Sixteen
Act like Terry Jeffries
event2005 star_border 6.2
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Pregnant sixteen year old Jacey's well-meaning mother forces her to keep the birth a secret and decides to raise the baby as her own.
Twisted
Act like Cybelle
event1985 star_border 5.2
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One evening the Collins find their maid Mrs. Murdock at the end of their steps: dead, neck broken. Obviously she had an accident. Consequently they need a new babysitter for an upcoming big party. The sensible Helen meets little Susan Collins at the discount market and likes her, so she offers to do the job. She doesn't know Susan's teenage brother Mark - technically skilled and good in school, but restive and cunning. As soon as the parents have left, he starts psychologically terrorizing Helen and his sister with electronic tricks.
Doubt
Act like Mrs. Syd Newman
event2013
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Centers on Vincent, a former cop who's now a cunning but charming low-rent lawyer who uses his street smarts to work the system for his clients while battling his own demons and wooing his ex-wife.
Gia
Act like Kathleen Carangi
event1998 star_border 7.1
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Gia Carangi meteorically rises to modeling fame in the late 1970s but becomes overconsumed by persistent loneliness and drug addiction.
What's Cooking?
Act like Elizabeth Avila
event2000 star_border 5.8
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Four families of different ethnicities prepare for a potentially explosive Thanksgiving dinner.
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Act like Party Guest (uncredited)
event1989 star_border 7.4
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A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.
Indictment: The McMartin Trial
Act like Lael Rubin
event1995 star_border 7
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The McMartin family's lives are turned upside down when they are accused of serious child molestation. The family run a school for infants. An unqualified child cruelty "expert" videotapes the children describing outrageous stories of abuse. One of the most expensive and long running trials in US legal history, exposes the lack of evidence and unprofessional attitudes of the finger pointers which kept one of the accused in jail for over 5 years without bail.
The Warriors
Act like Policewoman
event1979 star_border 7.7
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Prominent gang leader Cyrus calls a meeting of New York's gangs to set aside their turf wars and take over the city. At the meeting, a rival leader kills Cyrus, but a Coney Island gang called the Warriors is wrongly blamed for Cyrus' death. Before you know it, the cops and every gangbanger in town is hot on the Warriors' trail.
People Not Places
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An elderly widow living in Atlantic City meets an erratic homeless man who sleeps in cars. Their shared loneliness causes them to bond, as they find the courage to face his regrettable past and her shortened future.
Leader of the Band
Act like Miss Cooper
event1987 star_border 3
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Eddie is a down-on-his-luck bar pianist who has just been fired from another job. Desperate for work, he finds a school looking for a leader for its hopelessly incompetent marching band. Somehow, Eddie has to whip these kids into shape in time for the big band competition. Can he get them to march without tripping over their own feet, let alone win the contest?
North Shore Fish
Act like Florence
event1997
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Sal (Tony Danza) has been the foreman at North Shore Fish, a frozen fish factory, for years. He and Flo (Mercedes Ruehl), the "batter" person on the assembly line, not only were high school sweethearts, but are currently carrying on an affair.
Spooky House
Act like Boss
event2002 star_border 6
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A magician with a mysterious secret lives alone with his jaguar, Shadow, in the Spooky House, an old mansion rigged with magic tricks and hidden chambers.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
Act like Self
event2015 star_border 6.6
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Bouncing between Europe and the United States as often as she would between lovers, Peggy Guggenheim’s life was as swirling as the design of her uncle’s museum, and reads more like fiction than any reality imaginable. Peggy Guggenheim – Art Addict offers a rare look into Guggenheim’s world: blending the abstract, the colorful, the surreal and the salacious, to portray a life that was as complex and unpredictable as the artwork Peggy revered and the artists she pushed forward.
Heartburn
Act like Eve
event1986 star_border 6
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Rachel is a food writer at a New York magazine who meets Washington columnist Mark at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reservations about marriage. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel thinks they are living happily ever after until she discovers that Mark is having an affair while she is waddling around with a second pregnancy.
Goldstar, Ohio
Act like Adriana Rock
event2010
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Four families and a chief of police recount the day marine casualty officers came to their respective small towns in Ohio.
Hustlers
Act like Mother
event2019 star_border 6.5
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A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.
Robin Williams: Behind Closed Doors
Act like Self
event2016
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A two-hour documentary special Robin Williams: Behind Closed Doors which gives viewers an intimate look at his life from his childhood in the suburbs of Chicago to small comedy clubs in Los Angeles, his breakthrough role on the TV show Happy Days as Mork from Ork and his big screen triumphs.
Subway Stories
Act like Leyla (segment "Underground")
event1997 star_border 6
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An anthology of 10 stories depicting real-life incidents of subway riders in New York City, which range from compassion and love to violence and loss.
Radio Days
Act like Ad Man
event1987 star_border 7
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The Narrator tells us how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. In the New York City of the late 1930s to the New Year's Eve 1944, this coming-of-age tale mixes the narrator's experiences with contemporary anecdotes and urban legends of the radio stars.
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Act like American girl in casino
event1976 star_border 6.8
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After the death of her handsome but good-for-nothing husband Vadinho, Flor, a widow, marries Dr. Teodoro, a respectable gentleman. Hilarity ensues when Vadinho's spirit returns into her life.
Four Friends
Act like Woman in Taxi
event1981 star_border 6.9
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A young immigrant comes to America in the 60s and is caught up in the counterculture movement which tests his bonds of friendship and love.
Star Spangled Banners
Act like Rosalind Banner
event2013 star_border 4.9
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Ten years following the breakup of the family band, The Banner Project, siblings Desiree, Johnny, and Mitchel Banner, are faced with the decision to reunite in order to save their home town from bankruptcy.
Kate & Allie
(1 ep.)
event1984 star_border 5.9
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Kate & Allie is an American television situation comedy which ran from March 19, 1984, to May 22, 1989. Kate & Allie first aired on CBS as a midseason replacement series and only six episodes were initially commissioned, but the favorable response from critics and viewers alike easily convinced CBS to commit to a full season in the fall of 1984. The series was created by Sherry Coben.
Law & Order
Act like Zina Rybakov (1 ep.)
event1990 star_border 7.4
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In cases ripped from the headlines, police investigate serious and often deadly crimes, weighing the evidence and questioning the suspects until someone is taken into custody. The district attorney's office then builds a case to convict the perpetrator by proving the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Working together, these expert teams navigate all sides of the complex criminal justice system to make New York a safer place.
The Cosby Show
Act like Bernadette Foley (1 ep.)
event1984 star_border 7
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The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an upper middle-class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York.
Entourage
Act like Rita Chase (1 ep.)
event2004 star_border 7.3
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Film star Vince Chase navigates the vapid terrain of Los Angeles with a close circle of friends and his trusty agent.
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Act like Self - Guest (1 ep.)
event1993 star_border 7.1
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Stepping into the late-late slot vacated by David Letterman, Conan O'Brien stars in a show that far outdoes its competition in sheer strangeness. Along with the celebrity interviews and musical numbers typical of late-night talk shows, this program make frequent use of odd walk-on characters and frequent "visits" from celebrity guests.
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Act like Rebecca (1 ep.)
event1951 star_border 8.7
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Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The longest-running primetime series in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning during 1951 and continuing into 2013. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, though the program began with live telecasts of dramas and then changed to videotaped productions before finally changing to filmed ones.
The series has received eighty Emmy Awards, twenty-four Christopher Awards, eleven Peabody Awards, nine Golden Globes, and four Humanitas Prizes. Once a common practice in American television, it is the last remaining television program such that the title includes the name of the sponsor. Unlike other long-running TV series still on the air, it differs in that it broadcasts only occasionally and not on a weekly broadcast programming schedule.
The Oscars
Act like Self (1 ep.)
event1953 star_border 7
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An annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is better known by its nickname Oscar.
ABC Afterschool Special
Act like Sandy (1 ep.)
event1972 star_border 6.4
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Dramatically presented situations, often controversial, of interest to children and teenagers. Several episodes were either in animated form or presented as documentaries. Topics included illiteracy, substance abuse and teenage pregnancy.
Widows
Act like Dolly Rawlins (4 ep.)
event2002
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The widows of three men killed while trying to steal a famous painting, join forces to find their husband's killers and finish off the job of stealing the painting.
2 Broke Girls
Act like Olga (1 ep.)
event2011 star_border 7.2
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Comedy about the unlikely friendship that develops between two very different young women who meet waitressing at a diner in trendy Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and form a bond over one day owning their own successful cupcake business. Only one thing stands in their way – they’re broke.
Frasier
Act like Kate Costas (5 ep.)
event1993 star_border 7.7
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After many years spent at the “Cheers” bar, Frasier moves back home to Seattle to work as a radio psychiatrist after his policeman father gets shot in the hip on duty.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Act like Self (1 ep.)
event1962 star_border 7.4
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The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under The Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night. For its first ten years, Carson's Tonight Show was based in New York City with occasional trips to Burbank, California; in May 1972, the show moved permanently to Burbank, California. In 2002, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was ranked #12 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Act like Lucia Barba (1 ep.)
event1999 star_border 7.9
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In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
Monday Mornings
Act like Judge Beverly Natheson (1 ep.)
event2013 star_border 7.1
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Monday Mornings was an American medical drama television series that ran on TNT from February 4 to April 8, 2013 and aired Mondays after Dallas. It is based on a novel of the same name by Sanjay Gupta. In May 2012, TNT placed a ten-episode order for the series. On May 10, 2013, Monday Mornings was canceled by TNT.
Life in Pieces
Act like Mia (1 ep.)
event2015 star_border 7.1
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Comedy about one big happy family and their sometimes awkward, often hilarious and ultimately beautiful milestone moments as told by its various members. Of the three siblings, middle child Matt may have just found his true love, his co-worker, Colleen; his coddled youngest brother, Greg, and his wife, Jen, are overwhelmed by the birth of their first child; and the eldest, Heather, and her husband, Tim, are dreading their impending empty nest so much, they're considering having another baby. Their parents are Joan the family's adoring matriarch who would do anything for her kids - as long as she agrees with it - and John, the gregarious patriarch who's searching for ways to soften the blow of turning 70. As the family's lives unfold in four short stories each week, they try to savor these little pieces of time that flash by but stay with you forever, because these moments add up to what life's all about.
New Amsterdam
Act like Grace (1 ep.)
event2018 star_border 8.4
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The new medical director breaks the rules to heal the system at America's oldest public hospital. Max Goodwin sets out to tear up the bureaucracy and provide exceptional care, but the doctors and staff are not so sure he can succeed. They've heard this before. Not taking "no" for an answer, Dr. Goodwin's instinctive response to problems large and small is four simple words: "How can I help?" He has to disrupt the status quo and prove he'll stop at nothing to breathe new life into this underfunded and underappreciated hospital, returning it to the glory that put it on the map.
NCIS
Act like Marie Quinn (1 ep.)
event2003 star_border 7.6
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From murder and espionage to terrorism and stolen submarines, a team of special agents investigates any crime that has a shred of evidence connected to Navy and Marine Corps personnel, regardless of rank or position.
Bull
Act like Judge Tessa Hudson (1 ep.)
event2016 star_border 7
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Dr. Jason Bull is the brilliant, brash, and charming founder of a hugely successful trial consulting firm.
Psych
Act like Detective Goochberg (1 ep.)
event2006 star_border 7.9
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Thanks to his police officer father's efforts, Shawn Spencer spent his childhood developing a keen eye for detail (and a lasting dislike of his dad). Years later, Shawn's frequent tips to the police lead to him being falsely accused of a crime he solved.
Now, Shawn has no choice but to use his abilities to perpetuate his cover story: psychic crime-solving powers, all the while dragging his best friend, his dad, and the police along for the ride.
The Mysteries of Laura
Act like Val Santiani (1 ep.)
event2014 star_border 7.1
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Laura Diamond, a brilliant NYPD homicide detective balances her “Columbo” day job with a crazy family life that includes two unruly twin boys and a soon-to-be ex-husband — also a cop — who just can't seem to sign the divorce papers. Between cleaning up after her boys and cleaning up the streets, she’d be the first to admit she has her “hot mess” moments in this hilariously authentic look at what it really means to be a “working mom” today. Somehow, she makes it all work with the help of her sexy and understanding partner, and things becomes even more complicated when her husband, ironically, becomes her boss at the precinct. For Laura, every day is a high-wire balancing act.
Accused
Act like Connie (1 ep.)
event2023 star_border 7.5
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In this crime anthology series, viewers discover how an ordinary person got caught up in an extraordinary situation, ultimately revealing how one wrong turn leads to another, until it’s too late to turn back. Told from the defendant’s point of view, each episode opens in a courtroom on the accused without knowing their crime or how they ended up on trial.
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