Australian actress Rachel Griffiths was born on December 18, 1968 in Newcastle, South Wales. She has won a Golden Globe award for her work on the HBO series Six Feet Under, as well as being nominated for multiple Emmy Awards and an Academy Award throughout her acting career. Upon earning her Bachelor of Education degree in dance and drama at Victoria College, she started out working with the Woolly Jumpers, a community theater group. Other films she has appeared in are Muriel’s Wedding, Jude, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Hilary and Jackie, and Blow. She is married to artist Andrew Taylor, and is the mother of two children.

Brenda Chenowith is played by Rachel Griffiths in HBO’s award-winning television drama Six Feet Under. Born on July 19, 1969, she was a genius and child prodigy who was studied and scrutinized by various psychologists, and made the subject of a book titled Charlotte Light and Dark. However, she was intelligent and wily enough to study disease symptoms and fake them, making the book completely inaccurate. The daughter of rich yet dysfunctional psychiatrists, Brenda spends most of her life trying to safeguard and watch over her brother Billy, who suffers from bipolar disorder. She meets Nate Fisher and pursues a relationship with him, with the two of them actually getting engaged at one point.



(Image courtesy of John P. Johnson)