Mara Hobel

How rapidly things change in show business. In 1981, 10 year-old Mara Hobel was being called a major child star after her portrayal of Christina Crawford was widely hailed as the best thing in Frank Perry's melodramatic exposé of actress Joan Crawford's parenting skills, "Mommie Dearest." Yet, within two years, Hobel was playing Gay, the tap-dancing daughter of the Holloway family in Arthur Bicknell's play "Moose Murders," which entered Broadway folklore by opening and closing on the same night after a single performance on 22 February 1983 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater. Hobel first appeared on screen at the age of eight, opposite Sigourney Weaver in the 1979 TV-movie "3 By Cheever: The Sorrows of Gin," and played Michael Caine's daughter in Oliver Stone's 1981 body horror "The Hand" before her stellar turn in "Mommie Dearest." However, she had to content herself with the odd Afterschool Special and teleplays like "Doing Life" before she landed a recurring role as neighbor Charlotte Tilden in the hit sitcom "Roseanne." Having filled out in her twenties, Hobel used her size to comic advantage, as the matchmaker estranged from her rich parents in the 1997 gay romcom "Broadway Damage" and the aspiring actress pipped to roles by thinner rivals in the 1999 short "Claire Makes It Big." Subsequently, in addition to occasional TV guest slots, she has also appeared in the 2002 woman's picture "Personal Velocity," the 2004 biopic "Kinsey," and the 2008 sci-fi thriller "The Happening."