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JoBeth Williams made a showstopping movie debut in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), playing a one-night stand of Dustin Hoffman's, surprised by his young son while darting nude to the bathroom. This memorable screen moment followed years of stage work and TV soap-opera activity. She appeared in Stir Crazy (1980) and Endangered Species (1982) before landing two roles that boosted her stock in Hollywood: the terrorized mother fighting to save her children in the 1982 shocker Poltergeist (a role she recreated for the 1986 sequel), and the former campus radical turned housewife in the 1983 ensemble drama The Big Chill Williams was one of the Teachers (1984, doffing her duds once again), and an adventurous housewife in American Dreamer (1984). She seems to have fallen in the trap of playing put-upon partners, essaying such roles in Desert Bloom (1986), Memories of Me (1988) and Welcome Home (1989), but snagged a deliciously funny part in Switch (1991), a generally brainless movie that at least showed her capable of broad comedy. TV has afforded Williams some of her finest roles: the real-life mother of a missing child in Adam (1983) and Adam: His Song Continues (1986), and real-life surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead in Baby M (1988). Recent credits include Me Myself and I (1992), Chantilly Lace, Final Appeal (both 1993 telefilms), and Wyatt Earp (1994, as Bessie Earp). She received an Oscar nomination for directing the short subject On Hope (1994).
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