New episode of our quiz series dedicated to Malcolm’s family. Make way for Lois, the authoritarian mother who rules the house!
The actress Jane Kaczmarek, of Polish origin, was born in the United States in 1955 in Wisconsin. She began her career in the early 80s, and appeared during the next two decades in numerous television films and television series, including New York Judicial Police or Los Angeles Law.
She also participated in a few feature films like Dead on Arrival in 1988 alongside Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, or Pleasantville by Gary Ross in 1998. But it was in the early 2000s that everything changed for the actress, when she landed one of the main roles in the Malcolm series.
She plays Lois, the mother, wife of Hal and mother of four children – Francis, Reese, Malcolm and Dewey – at the start of the show. She is a tough woman who reigns unchallenged over her small tribe of turbulent children, always ready to do the worst mischief. A severe and authoritarian temperament, which gave rise to many comic springs in the series.
If Bryan Cranston, who plays her husband in the show, had a successful career, landing shortly after another prestigious role in the person of Walter White in Breaking Bad, after Malcolm will have been more difficult for Jane Kaczmarek, confining herself to a few brief appearances in series like New York Special Unit, The Big Bang Theory or This Is Us.
Take a look back at one of television’s most famous moms of the 2000s, with this eight-question quiz about Lois.