Lisa Ann Walter is an American actress, comedian, writer and film producer. She has appeared in such films as the 1998 version of The Parent Trap, Bruce Almighty, Shall We Dance, and War of the Worlds. Walter also created and starred in the short-lived 1996–1997 sitcom, Life's Work. She was a judge on ABC's reality television series . She also won for her charity in a celebrity edition of The Weakest Link.
Early life
Walter was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. She and her older sister, Laura, are the children of a geophysicist father who was born in France, and a substitute-teacher mother who was born in Sicily. The family lived in different places following their father's work, and their childhood homes included Germany and the suburbs of Washington, D.C.. Her ancestry also includes German. She graduated with a theater degree from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1983.
Personal life
Walter resides in Los Angeles with her four children, including son Jordan, daughter Delia, and twin boys Simon and Spencer. She is developing enough material for a return to stand-up comedy. She remains good friends with British actorSimon Kunz and Elaine Hendrix, with both of whom she acted in The Parent Trap.
Career
After five years of standup comedy, she was cast to star in her own Fox Network comedy series, My Wildest Dreams, followed by an ABC sitcom, Life's Work, which she both created and starred in. Walter also co-starred in the Bravo series Breaking News and in the NBC sitcom Emeril. In addition to Bruce Almighty and Shall We Dance, Walter co-starred in the Disney filmThe Parent Trap ; in the remake of the original classic, she appeared as the nanny to Dennis Quaid's character's daughter, who was played by a young Lindsay Lohan. Prior to that, she played Whoopi Goldberg's tarty sidekick Claudine in Eddie. In early 2007, Walter had a supporting role as Mabel the bartender in the MyNetworkTVsoap operaWatch Over Me. Later that May she served as a judge on the ABC reality TV showThe Next Best Thing, which searched for the best celebrity impersonatorsin America. In early 2008, Walter was in the comedy film Drillbit Taylor, and also starred on the VH1 reality series Celebracadabra, in which celebrities competed to see who was the best magician among them. She made it to the final three but was eliminated in the sixth episode. She has developed a series for the Oxygen network called Dance Your Ass Off. On December 19, 2011, she appeared on Rizzoli & Isles as a ballet coach, J.J. It was far from her usual role, as she played a very serious character in a drama. Her comic memoir, "The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It's Behind Me" was published in May 2011. Beginning in May 2011, Walter hosted The Fabulous Lisa Ann Walter Show, a talk show on the Los Angeles radio stationKFI. The program aired for three hours each Saturday and Sunday. In August 2014, Walter quit in order to focus on her acting career.
