Other film roles include Norma Rae (1979), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Nickel Mountain (1984), The Big Easy (1986), Leonard Part 6 (1987), Drugstore Cowboy (1989), Child's Play 2 (1990), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), Armageddon (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), and The Grudge (2004).
[4] Her mother had distant Polish and Dutch ancestry,[5] and was a relative of James Zabriskie, a 19th-century railroad industrialist and early pioneer of California.
[8] Her sister, Lane Caplinger, worked as a typist in New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's office.
In 1988, she played Richard Mulligan's love interest "Eva Barrett" on the hit NBC sitcom Empty Nest.
Zabriskie also appeared in Lynch's Wild at Heart—notably as the twin sister of a character played by Isabella Rossellini, an actress eleven years her junior.
She played the mother of another doomed daughter, Susan Ross—George Costanza's fiancée—who died after licking cheap envelope adhesive when mailing out her wedding invitations.
Zabriskie's character's husband on the series, who also appeared in a recurring role, was played by her former Twin Peaks co-star, Warren Frost.
She also made a brief but memorable appearance in the episode "S'ain't Valentine's" on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens, as the emotionally disturbed and alcoholic mother of Spence Olchin (played by Patton Oswalt).
In one episode of Frank's show, "Home (Original)", she talks at length about her childhood in New Orleans, with a focus on her father.
Zabriskie appeared in the 2004 American remake of The Grudge, in which she played a senile elderly woman sensitive to the paranormal occurrences in her home.