Brenda Strong - Career

Career

Her first break after college was a spot in Billy Crystal’s 1984 music video You Look Marvelous. Her first television appearances came in 1985 with brief stints on St. Elsewhere, MacGyver, and Cheers. She also made guest appearances on Matlock, Murphy Brown, Herman's Head, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Blossom, and had a brief role on the cult favorite Twin Peaks.

By the mid-1990s she was a regular guest player on dozens of series, with prominent recurring roles on 3rd Rock from the Sun and Party of Five. Strong also appeared on ER, Picket Fences, Silk Stalkings, and Dawson's Creek. She played Captain Deladier in the 1997 science fiction movie Starship Troopers.

One of Strong's most prominent roles during the 1990s was a recurring stint as Elaine’s nemesis Sue Ellen Mischke, the “bra-less wonder” and "Oh Henry!" candy bar heiress, on several episodes of Seinfeld.

She is well known for her recurring role on Sports Night as Sally Sasser, the nemesis of Felicity Huffman's Dana Whitaker. She also guest-starred on The WB's popular 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls,and Everwood. While working for The WB, she also had guest appearances on Ally McBeal, Nip/Tuck, CSI, Malcolm in the Middle and the short-lived The Lyon’s Den. She also starred on the short-lived series Scorch (1992) and The Help (2004).

Strong appeared in movies such as The Craft, Spaceballs, The Deep End of the Ocean, Red Dragon, Black Dog, Exposed, Starship Troopers and Starship Troopers 2 (her character died in the original, but she returned in a different role in the second movie). More recently, she could be seen in the dramatic Lifetime movie Family in Hiding, which premiered on August 6, 2006, as well as Curb Your Enthusiasm, where she plays a love interest of Larry David. Strong also appeared in the 2009 movie Ocean of Pearls.

Between 2004 and 2006, she costarred in the motion picture trilogy The Work and the Glory, based on a bestselling nine-volume series of the same name by Gerald N. Lund. Strong made an appearance on Boston Legal as a judge presiding over a murder trial in 2008.