Park Overall (born March 15, 1957) is an American actress, political activist, and former U.S. Senate candidate, known for her trademark heavy Southern accent.
Her best-known role was as nurse Laverne Todd in the sitcom Empty Nest, though she has appeared in a number of feature films, including Biloxi Blues, Mississippi Burning, Talk Radio, and In the Family.
[4] She also appeared in both the stage and film versions of Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues,[5] and had a role in a failed pilot called The Line (which aired once in the summer of 1987) with Dinah Manoff, with whom she eventually costarred on the NBC series Empty Nest.
She has made guest appearances on TV shows such as The Golden Girls, The Young Riders, and Reba, in which she had a recurring role during the series' first season.
Her first feature role was in Tainted (1987);[7] she appeared in four additional films the same year: Biloxi Blues, Vibes, Mississippi Burning, and Talk Radio.
In 1995, she gave an interview on ABC's news show Primetime attacking the paper company Champion International, which had for years been accused by environmentalists of polluting the Pigeon River.
[8] In recent years, Overall has been a vocal critic of Nuclear Fuel Services, which operates a uranium processing complex in Erwin, Tennessee.
[9] Overall has filed numerous petitions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which insists the complex's radiation output levels are safe.
In subsequent years, she sought to prevent NFS's implementation of the Blended Low-Enriched Uranium (BLEU) project in Erwin, which will provide fuel for reactors at Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear power plants.