Jennifer Rhodes
Jennifer Rhodes is an American actress best known in her many television roles specifically TV shows such as Friends and Gilmore Girls but she is mainly known for her role as Penny Halliwell on Charmed.
Life and career
The daughter of Bennie and Clara Wilson, she grew up in Rosiclare, Illinois, and graduated from Rosiclare Community High School in 1957. She became interested in theater while attending Southern Illinois University and moved to New York City soon after graduating. She studied acting and began getting cast for theatre roles. She eventually moved to Los Angeles where she stopped acting for a while because she felt, as a stage actress, she didn't know very much about acting for television or movie roles.She eventually auditioned successfully for commercials roles, later moving on to television and film.Rhodes' first credited role was in the 1960s television series The High Chaparral as the character Tanea. In 1980, she played a press secretary on a made-for-TV movie about Jackie Kennedy.In 1988, she appeared in the New World Pictures film Heathers as Winona Ryder's mother. She appeared on the following select series: Fame, Matlock, Little House on the Prairie, L.A. Law, Quantum Leap, Knots Landing, Designing Women, Full House, Red Shoe Diaries, Party of Five, ER, Wings, Murphy Brown, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Family Matters, Friends, Popular, The Agency, and Boston Public. She also appeared on the Disney Channel's The Suite Life on Deck.
Rhodes may be best known as Penny "Grams" Halliwell on The WB series Charmed, where she starred as the ghost of the Charmed Ones's grandmother and the tough-as-nails matriarch of the Halliwell clan. Although not a regular she did appear frequently throughout all 8 seasons of the original series.
Her first regular series role was in Nightingales as the character Effie Gardner.