A legendary stage and screen actress portrayed Michael Scott’s mother on The Office. Michael, the regional manager of the paper company at the center of the NBC sitcom, was played until actor Steve Carell for seven seasons. The character’s brash personality, especially when it came to his personal life, was often at the focus of the series.
Even though Michael had trouble with the dating world as shown time and time again on The Office, he never gave up hope on his dream of having a wife and a house full of kids. The reason stemmed from his loneliness as a child and a need for a more lasting relationship, something his parents never had. Throughout the series, it was revealed that Michael’s parents were divorced and he was raised by his mom and stepfather named Jeff. He was said to have multiple siblings, including a half-sister, but they were surprisingly never introduced. In fact, the only family members that appeared on the show was his grandmother and his teenage nephew, Luke Cooper.
The name of Michael’s mother was never unveiled on The Office. Viewers, however, did hear her voice in an episode and it belonged to June Squibb. After driving Holly to Nashua for her employee transfer, Michael led his coworkers to believe that the two were engaged when they actually broke up. In the season 5 episode titled “Customer Survey,” the employees encouraged Michael to call his mom to share the big news and he does so. He opened the call to proclaim he was getting married and his mom quickly interjected with the hilarious reaction, “no you’re not.” The phone call revealed that it wasn’t the first time that he had lied to his mom about settling down so it was no shock that their interaction was brief. Squibb’s involvement in the series was brief but the same couldn’t be said about her career.
The 90-year-old actress has a long history of doing cameos and special appearances in hit TV series. Prior to her voice role on The Office in 2008, Squibb worked on Law & Order, Judging Amy, ER, House, The Bernie Mac Show, Two and a Half Men, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. These stints were in addition to her past film titles like Scent of a Woman, Meet Joe Black, and About Schmidt. Squibb’s most memorable role came in 2013 with her portrayal as Kate Grant in the black-and-white dramedy, Nebraska. Her performance in the film garnered a number of high profile accolades.
Aside from continuing her movie career, the presumed queen of TV cameos has kept up with the nickname with roles in Castle, Girls, Glee, Mom, The Big Bang Theory, Shameless, Modern Family, Bones, and Grey’s Anatomy. More recently, Squibb had a short stint in NBC’s crime series, Good Girls. Squibb has multiple movies coming up including Hubie Halloween, The Humans, and Palmer. It would be interesting to see if she ever joins a project with an alum from The Office so a segment of her stellar career could truly come full circle.
