Maggie Roswell

Maggie Roswell (born November 14, 1952) is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer from Los Angeles, California.

She is well known for her voice work on the Fox network animated television series The Simpsons, in which she has played recurring characters such as Maude Flanders, Helen Lovejoy, Miss Hoover, and Luann Van Houten, as well as several minor characters.

This work has earned her an Annie Award nomination.

Roswell was born on November 14, 1952, and raised in Los Angeles, California.

After going to Catholic school and Los Angeles City College, she began a career in acting.

In the 1970s, she made some guest appearances on television shows such as M*A*S*H, but she did not gain her first big acting roles until the 1980s.

Roswell made her acting break-through in the 1980s with appearances in films such as Midnight Madness (1980), Lost in America (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986), and guest appearances on television shows such as Remington Steele, Masquerade, and Happy Days.

She appeared frequently in the sketch comedy The Tim Conway Show from 1980 to 1981, and did voice acting for a few animated films and television shows.

In the 1980 film Midnight Madness, she played a character that leads a group of sorority sisters who are participating in a college puzzle solving race.

Roswell also starred in the sketch comedy The Tim Conway Show in 1980 and 1981.

In addition, Roswell played some minor roles in television shows in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, including guest appearances on Remington Steele (1983), Masquerade (1984), Happy Days (1984), Murphy Brown (1993), and Quantum Leap (1993).

She was offered a chance to replace Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live, but turned down the offer when her agent told her "the show wasn't going anywhere."

Roswell has also worked on stage.

In addition to her live action roles, Roswell did some voice acting in animated films and shows, including the voice of Teegra in Fire and Ice from 1983.

She appeared in the film Lost in America (1985) as the character Patty, and she had a supporting role in the film Pretty in Pink (1986).

She also acted in the two-part television film The Deliberate Stranger.

In 1986 she appeared in improvisatory shows directed by Paul Sills at Lamb's Theatre, in which the actors were given characters and situations by the audience members.

Roswell met fellow voice actor Hal Rayle in 1986, and they married in 1987.

He had done roles such as the Predator in Predator 2, the ghoulies in Ghoulies II, and Marvin the Martian in Air Jordan commercials.

Roswell also performed in some theater plays, including one in 1988 directed by Julia Sweeney.

In 1988, she had a role in Julia Sweeney's play Mea's Big Apology at Groundling Theatre in Los Angeles.

She played Eunice, a cynical woman who works at a malpractice insurance company and is a colleague to the main character.

The company people do everything they can to dismiss her because they do not want to pay her retirement benefits, which are about to take effect.

In 1989, Roswell was hired for the first season of The Simpsons.

She played a few minor characters until she became a regular cast member with the introduction of Maude Flanders in the second season.

This led to her being hired on the animated television series The Simpsons in 1989.

Her first appearance was in the season one episode "Homer's Night Out", in which she voiced the character Princess Kashmir (a belly dancer who seduces Homer).

Out of the total thirteen episodes of the first season, Roswell appeared in four; however, they were only minor roles.

Roswell did not become a regular cast member until the middle of the second season in the episode "Dead Putting Society" (1990), with the introduction of Maude Flanders (neighbor to the Simpson family and the loving wife of Ned Flanders).

Roswell went on to voice other recurring characters on the show, such as Helen Lovejoy (the reverend's wife), Miss Hoover (an elementary school teacher), and Luann Van Houten (the mother of Bart's best friend, Milhouse), as well as several more one-time characters and background characters.

Fellow Simpsons cast member Nancy Cartwright wrote in her autobiography that "Maggie Roswell has been blessed with a skill in creating one of the hardest things to create: the 'normal sound,' whatever that is. So she can easily slip into the gal next door or any number of assorted reporters, medical students, jury members, accountants, scientists and moms."

Roswell was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on The Simpsons.

Roswell reprised this role in a 1992 revival of the play, also at Groundling Theatre.

In 1994, Roswell and her husband Hal Rayle moved from Los Angeles to Denver to raise their daughter.

Together they established the Roswell 'n' Rayle Company, creating and voicing advertisements for companies.

Because of her move to Denver, Roswell had to travel to Los Angeles twice a week to tape The Simpsons.

They moved from Los Angeles to Denver, Colorado, in June 1994 to raise their adopted daughter Spenser, who was born in 1993.

She also received a 1997 Annie Award nomination in the category "Best Individual Achievement: Voice Acting by a Female Performer in a TV Production" for her role as Shary Bobbins in the episode "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious", but lost to June Foray.

This ultimately led to her requesting a pay raise in 1999; however, Fox refused to offer her the amount she wanted so she quit the show.

Roswell returned to The Simpsons in 2002 after reaching a deal to record her lines from her Denver home.