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Pamela Reed (born April 2, 1949) is an American actress. She is known for playing Ruth Powers in various episodes of TV's The Simpsons, as Arnold Schwarzenegger's hypoglycemic partner in the 1990 movie Kindergarten Cop and as the matriarch Gail Green in Jericho. She currently appears as Marlene Griggs-Knope on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. Reed was born in Tacoma, Washington, the daughter of Vernie Reed. She received her B.F.A. at the University of Washington. Reed has been married to Sandy Smolan since 1988. Since 2004, she has resided in Hancock Park, California, with her husband... MORE

Pamela Reed (born April 2, 1949) is an American actress. She is known for playing Ruth Powers in various episodes of TV's The Simpsons, as Arnold Schwarzenegger's hypoglycemic partner in the 1990 movie Kindergarten Cop and as the matriarch Gail Green in Jericho. She currently appears as Marlene Griggs-Knope on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. Reed was born in Tacoma, Washington, the daughter of Vernie Reed. She received her B.F.A. at the University of Washington. Reed has been married to Sandy Smolan since 1988. Since 2004, she has resided in Hancock Park, California, with her husband and two children, Reed and Lily, both adopted. Reed earned a Drama Desk Award for the off-Broadway play Getting Out and an Obie award for "sustaining excellence in performance in theater". She had minor film and television work in the 1980s. She won a Cable Ace Award for Best Actress for the HBO series Tanner '88 (1988). Her notable film roles include The Long Riders (1980), The Right Stuff (1983), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Junior (1994), Bean (1997), and Proof of Life (2001). Reed played Janice Pasetti in the quirky NBC sitcom Grand, and then played a judge and single mother in the short-lived NBC LESS