Patricia Castle Richardson (born February 23, 1951) is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Jill Taylor on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement, for which she was nominated four times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and twice for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical. She also received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her performance in Ulee's Gold (1997). Early life Richardson attended multiple schools including Holton-Arms School and Hockaday School. She is a 1972 graduate of Southern Methodist University, where she was friends with classmates Beth Henley and Stephen Tobolowsky, who was slated to be a cast member of Home Improvement, but had other contractual commitments when the series began filming. Tobolowsky initially suggested to producers of Home Improvement that Richardson be considered for the role of Jill Taylor after Frances Fisher was deemed too serious for the role. Career Richardson began as the understudy for the role of Gypsy Rose Lee in Angela Lansbury's Broadway production of Gypsy: A Musical Fable in 1974, also playing several small chorus parts. In the next ten years she worked in regional theater, commercials, and other Broadway and Off- Broadway plays. She had roles in programs such as The Equalizer, Spencer For Hire, and Kate & Allie. She appeared in one episode of The Cosby Show in the third season with her real-life husband, playing a woman giving birth to her ninth child. Richardson also appeared in the films Christmas Evil and C.H.U.D.. In 1989, she appeared in one episode of Quantum Leap as a radio station owner. In 1983, she left New York for LA briefly to do a sitcom centered around Katey Sagal's twin sisters, Liz and Jean Sagal, called Double Trouble, for Norman Lear. When asked to go back and do a second season after her contract had expired, she passed in order to stay in New York and continue performing in Beth Henley's The Miss Firecracker Contest off-Broadway. A few years later Allan Burns, who co-created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, brought her back to Los Angeles to star in two sitcoms he produced: Eisenhower and Lutz and FM. Both shows ran for 13 episodes. In 1991, three months after giving birth to twins, Richardson became a last-minute replacement for Frances Fisher in what would be her breakout role