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mary pat gleason

"Hey! Where have I seen that cranky robot space librarian before?"

You've seen character actress Mary Pat Gleason in lots of TV shows and movies. She played Nurse Sizemore on "Friends," kooky Sally on "Will & Grace," and Ms. Butters on "Desperate Housewives." Is drama more your style? She was Janice Van Meter in "Steel Magnolias" and Martha Corey in "The Crucible." Most recently, she appeared in both "Drillbit Taylor" and "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry." Add that all together, and you have an eclectic mix of experience that's right at home on a show like "The Middleman."

Mary Pat's credits don't stop at acting. She won a Daytime Emmy Writers Award in 1986 for the soap opera "Guiding Light." More recently, she wrote and performed "Stopping Traffic," a humorous one-woman show that chronicled her real-life struggle with bipolar disorder. Mary Pat Gleason plays the Middleman's cantankerous robot assistant, Ida. She's a "soulless android from outer space masquerading as a cranky librarian." Not much is known about Ida, apart from this: She's a link between past Middlemen, as well as a link between the current Middleman and O2STK, the secret organization that gives him his marching orders.

Ida's abilities seem limitless, and she has yet to find an electronic device she can't interface with. It is said that she once had the ability to change her appearance and personality, but due to a yet-to-be-revealed accident, her circuitry became stuck in "domineering schoolmarm" mode. The circuitry's loss is comedy's gain.

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brit morgan