Distinctive in both appearance and voice, Linda Hunt held a long list of notable roles before that of Henrietta (Hetty) Lange on CBS's new hit "NCIS: Los Angeles." However, as TV shows go, you're most likely thinking of "The Practice."

Hunt had a frequently recurring role as Judge Zoey Hillier on the popular legal drama, trying the show's very first case in the 1997 pilot episode.

Though you may be recognizing her voice from her recurring role on the oddball HBO series "Carnivale," on which she voiced the mysteriously named character Management. She also narrated several episodes of the PBS series "The American Experience."

Notable for her four-foot-nine frame and her distinctively creaky voice, she's better known for her film work, such as in "Kingergarten Cop" (1990), "Dune" (1984) and, strangest of all, "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982).

In that case, it isn't the film itself that's strange - it was a relatively straightforward historical tale of too-often bloodsoaked Indonesian politics - but the fact that Hunt was cast in a male role. And it wasn't in any obvious gender-confused way that played out on screen; as the story goes, director Peter Weir simply cast her because he couldn't find any male actors he liked as much. And the rest is Oscar history, as she took home an Academy Award for her job playing Billy Kwan, a dwarf photographer shunned by his fellow journalists both because of his height and his passion for the plight of the Indonesian people.

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