Rena Sofer
- Actress
Rena was born in Arcadia, California, to Susan (Franzblau), a
psychology professor, and Martin Sofer, who was a Conservative Jewish
Rabbi. She moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when her parents divorced.
She was discovered at age 15 by a New York talent agent and started
modeling before turning to acting. She appeared on
Another World (1964) for a
short time and then went to Loving (1983),
where she played Rockie McKenzie for 3 years. She made her first mark
on television when she joined fellow ABC-soap
General Hospital (1963) as
savvy record promoter Lois Cerullo. Not only did her portrayal win her
a vast amount of fans, she also won a
'Best Supporting Actress' Daytime
Emmy and network executives considered creating a spin-off series based
on Lois and her on-screen husband Ned. It was on General Hospital she
met Wally Kurth,
her on-screen spouse who became her real-life husband and father to her
daughter Rosabel Rosalind Kurth. In the mid-'90s, Sofer made the leap
to primetime, guest starring in a number of series before appropriately
landing a regular part on primetime soap
Melrose Place (1992) which
turned to be the series' final season. Starring and recurring roles on
the sitcom
Just Shoot Me! (1997) and the
dramedy Ed (2000) widened her exposure. A
string of flop series followed
(Oh, Grow Up (1999);
The Chronicle (2001);
Coupling (2003) and
Blind Justice (2005), but Sofer
proved she had staying power and scored roles on the big screen in
movies with Ben Stiller
(Keeping the Faith (2000)) and
Steven Soderbergh's
Traffic (2000). After taking a brief
hiatus to give birth to a daughter with her second husband, TV director
Sanford Bookstaver, she returned to
the small screen in 2006 with recurring roles in two hit shows
24 (2001) and
Heroes (2006), as the
long-suffering wife to two shady characters, a power broker and an
aspiring politician, respectively. In 2010, she tackled a season-long
story arc as Margaret Allison Hart, an attorney with a hidden agenda on
NCIS (2003).
In 2013 she returned to her daytime roots, taking on the role of
enigmatic jewelry designer Quinn Fuller on
The Bold and the Beautiful (1987)
receiving rave reviews.
