Fran Brill


Frances Joan Brill is a retired American actress and puppeteer, best known for her roles on Sesame Street, as well as playing Sally Hayes in the Hal Ashby film Being There, Dana Mardukas in the Martin Brest film Midnight Run and Lily Marvin in the Frank Oz film What About Bob?.

Life and career

Brill was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Linette and Joseph M. Brill. Her father was a physician. She is a graduate of Boston University College of Fine Arts.
She began her career in theater, making her Broadway debut in the 1969 play Red, White and Maddox. Her other theatrical roles include leads at the Roundabout Theatre, Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons and many regional theaters including the Long Wharf, Yale Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, the Mark Taper Forum and the Actors Theatre of Louisville. She has been nominated twice for a Drama Desk Award, for What Every Woman Knows and for Knuckle, respectively.
From 1974-1975, Brill played Fran Bachman on NBC's daytime drama How to Survive a Marriage. Her character struggled with sudden widowhood, and Brill received over a thousand condolence letters. Brill was also featured in episodes of The Guiding Light, All My Children, The Edge of Night, Lip Service and Kate and Allie.
She has also guest-starred on nighttime dramas such as Third Watch, Against the Law, Law & Order, and .
On Sesame Street, for which she has won an Emmy Award, she has created and puppeteered the Muppets called Zoe, Little Bird, Betty Lou, and Prairie Dawn, among others. Playing Zoe, Brill appeared on the TV-series The West Wing as well as many home videos including Zoe's Dance Moves. With the Muppets she did Saturday Night Live, The Muppet Show, The Jim Henson Hour, Dog City, and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland.
She has also been seen and heard in hundreds of commercials and has appeared in such films as Being There, What About Bob?, Midnight Run, and City Hall.
In Timmy Time Yabba

Retirement

In 2014, Brill announced that she was retiring from puppeteering on Sesame Street. The following year, Stephanie D'Abruzzo and Jennifer Barnhart replaced Fran as the performers of Prairie Dawn and Zoe.

Personal life

On July 14, 1979, Brill married Clint Ramsden; they divorced in 1983. She has been married to writer Francis Robert Kelly since June 17, 1988.

Filmography