Georgia Engel to Guest Star on CBS's TWO AND A HALF MEN

According to TVGuide.com, actress Georgia Engel will appear as a guest star in an upcoming episode of CBS's TWO AND A HALF MEN.

The show's executive producer, Chuck Lorre, has revealed that Engle will portray Jean, the "sweet, widowed mom of Courtney Thorne Smith [Lyndsey]," Hinting at a possible lesbian affair, Lorre explains, "She and Evelyn (Holland Taylor) really hit it off." Confirms Taylor, "Chuck wants to show Evelyn experiencing real affection for the very first time."

In 1969, Engel appeared off Broadway in Lend an Ear, and for a year as Minnie Fay in the Broadway production of Hello, Dolly!. A 1971 off Broadway production of The House of Blue Leaves eventually played in Los Angeles, where Engel was seen by Mary Tyler Moore and her husband, producer Grant Tinker.

Engel is probably best known as Georgette Franklin Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, on which she appeared from 1972 until the show ended in 1977. The role won her two Emmy nominations. After that series ended, she teamed up with former Mary Tyler Moore Show co-star Betty White for The Betty White Show during its first and only (1977-1978) season.  Engel received consecutive Emmy nominations as outstanding guest actress in a comedy series in 2003, 2004, and 2005 for her role on Everybody Loves Raymond as Robert Barone's mother-in-law, Pat MacDougall.

Engel later returned to her stage roots. In 2006, she appeared on Broadway in the musical The Drowsy Chaperone, with Sutton Foster and Edward Hibbert. She created the role of Mrs. Tottendale, which she continued to perform as of early 2007. In September 2007, she reprised the role in Toronto for the North American tour. She recently performed the role at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco, an engagement that ended on Sunday, August 17, 2008. In recent years, she has been appearing at The Muny Theater in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri.