Brenda Strong on AllMovie

Brenda Strong's offscreen name might not immediately register with Seinfeld fans, but they will immediately identify the character actress after learning that she played the grating Sue Ellen Mischke, one of Elaine Benes's thorn-in-the-flesh nemeses, on that seminal American sitcom. Actually, Strong's television-heavy resumé reads like a best-of prime-time series list -- including not only Seinfeld, but Ally McBeal, Nip/Tuck, Gilmore Girls, 7th Heaven, and others. Strong remains best known, however, for her pivotal contribution to Desperate Housewives as the ill-fated Mary Alice Young, a social-climbing hausfrau who commits suicide in the opening episode of the program, and then hangs around (in a regular voice-over) to offer acerbic observations from the afterlife about her backstabbing earthbound friends. In addition to her television work, Strong also landed bit parts in such features as Spaceballs (1987), The Craft (1996), and Starship Troopers 2 (2004). Strong hosted a series of exercise videos in the early 2000s as well, among them Yoga 4 Fertility (2001) and Yoga 4 Partners (2002).