<P> Lydia Susanna Hunter (born April 2, 1945), better known by her stage name Linda Hunt, is an American film, stage, and television actress . After making her film debut playing Mrs. Oxheart in Popeye (1980), Hunt's breakthrough came playing the male character Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first person to win an Oscar portraying a character of the opposite sex . </P> <P> She has had great success in films such as The Bostonians (1984), Dune (1984), Silverado (1985), Eleni (1985), Waiting for the Moon (1987), She - Devil (1989), Kindergarten Cop (1990), If Looks Could Kill (1991), Rain Without Thunder (1992), Twenty Bucks (1993), Younger and Younger (1993), Prêt - à - Porter (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Relic (1997), Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998), Dragonfly (2002), Yours Mine and Ours (2005), and Stranger Than Fiction (2006). </P> <P> Hunt has also had a successful television career . She played Rose in the television movie Basements (1987) and narrated in the television movie The New Chimpanzees . She guest - starred on Hallmark Hall of Fame in both 1978 and 1987, Space Rangers in 1993, Carnivale in both 2003 and 2005, Without a Trace in 2008, The Unit in 2008, and Nip Tuck in 2009 . From 1997 to 2002, Hunt played the recurring role of Judge Zoey Hiller on The Practice . She currently portrays Henrietta "Hetty" Lange on the CBS television series NCIS: Los Angeles, a role she has held since the 2009 debut, for which she has received two Teen Choice Awards . She is also the narrator in the God of War video game franchise . </P> <P> Hunt was born on April 2, 1945 in Morristown, New Jersey to Raymond Davy Hunter (d . 1985), the vice president of Harper Fuel Oil, and Elsie Doying Hunter (d . ~ 1994), a piano teacher who taught at the Westport School of Music and performed with the Saugatuck Congregational Church Choir in Westport, Connecticut, where Hunt was raised . She has one sibling, an older sister named Marcia (b . 1940). Hunt attended the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, Illinois, which now part of DePaul University . </P>

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