Film and television O'Toole's first television appearance was in 1967 on
The Danny Kaye Show, Her first major film role was as a jaded beauty pageant contestant in the 1975 satire
Smile
; she got the role after doing an impression of a "dead cockroach" at the audition. She co-starred opposite
Gary Busey in the 1980 film ''
Foolin' Around. In 1981, she starred in the HBO onstage production of Vanities, as well as in the TV movie Stand By Your Man'', which detailed the life of country music legend
Tammy Wynette. In 1985, she co-starred with
Barry Manilow in the CBS television movie
Copacabana playing Lola La Mar to Manilow's Tony Starr. Also in 1985, she had a starring role as Ms. Edmunds in the original
Bridge to Terabithia, and appeared in the TV adaptation of
Strong Medicine the following year. In 1987's
Cross My Heart, a romantic comedy, O'Toole had a leading role opposite
Martin Short. In 1990, O'Toole had roles in two
ABC television mini-series. She played the adult
Beverly Marsh in the
television mini-series adaptation of
Stephen King's epic horror novel
It. She also portrayed
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy in
The Kennedys of Massachusetts, a role that earned her an
Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress. She next starred in the 1992
NBC mini-series
Jewels, based on the
Danielle Steel novel of the same name. In 1993, O'Toole starred in
Desperate Justice as Ellen Wells. In 1995, she starred as
Cheryl Keeton in the 1995
Lifetime television film based on
Ann Rule's
true crime novel
Dead by Sunset. She had a recurring role on the television show
Nash Bridges (1996) and starred in her own series
The Huntress (2000) as a female
bounty hunter. In 1997 O'Toole starred in the TV movie
Keeping the Promise. In 2001, 18 years after portraying Lana Lang in
Superman III, O'Toole returned to the
Superman mythos in the role of
Martha Kent, Superman's adoptive mother, in the television series
Smallville. She remained part of the show's main cast, though at times in the background, until the end of
its sixth season. She made guest appearances in the final two seasons, reprising her role, while also portraying
The Red Queen. In 2010, O'Toole played the role of Veronica, a middle-aged woman with a severe case of Alzheimer's, in the television series
Lie to Me. In 2013 she appeared in ''
Grey's Anatomy'' as a school teacher who finds out, after surgery, that she will die from cancer. O'Toole portrayed Susan Emerson in six episodes of the first two seasons of
Halt and Catch Fire. In 2016, O'Toole returned to the Stephen King realm as boarding house owner Edna Price in "The Kill Floor" episode of the King miniseries
11.22.63. She and former
Smallville co-star
John Glover reunited for the 2016 horror film
We Go On. In 2019, O'Toole filled the role of Hope McCrea in the Netflix series
Virgin River. She still currently plays the role, with season six being released in December 2024.
Musical career O'Toole can date the beginning of her songwriting career to events during a car ride after the
September 11 attacks; as her husband
Michael McKean describes it, "On September 11, 2001, Annette found herself without an airline to carry her back down to Los Angeles from Vancouver, where she films
Smallville. So she drove a rental car down. The two of us drove it back up together, and on the long drive up there, somewhere between Portland and Seattle, she told me she had a tune in her head." The "tune in her head" became "Potato's in the Paddy Wagon", one of three songs the couple wrote for
A Mighty Wind, O'Toole sang "What Could Be Better?"—a song she and her husband co-wrote – for the 2004
Disney children's album
A World of Happiness. In 2005, the couple did a
cabaret act for "
Feinstein's at the Regency" in New York City. In 2007, O'Toole appeared as a backing singer for her husband's fictional band
Spinal Tap at the London leg of the
Live Earth concerts. She has also performed on the band's 2009
Unwigged and Unplugged tour, and contributed lyrics to "Short and Sweet" on the 2009 Spinal Tap album
Back from the Dead. In 2011, she starred in CAP21's production of the new musical
Southern Comfort, based on the Sundance award-winning documentary, by Dan Collins and Julianne Wick Davis. ==Personal life==