Peri Gilpin figures she was destined to portray a character such as radio producer Roz Doyle on Frasier. For one thing, her late father, Jim O'Brien, was a nationally known broadcaster who used to take young Peri into a radio station in Dallas to sing "Happy Birthday" over the airwaves. Later, she worked in Hollywood with Wings producer Roz Doyle (now deceased), for whom her character is named in tribute.

Born in Waco, Texas, Gilpin was raised in Dallas, where she studied acting at the Dallas Theatre Centre. After high school, she continued her acting studies at the University of Texas at Austin and at the British-American Academy in London. Returning to the United States, she found work in Dallas as a makeup artist, but her lifelong desire to act motivated her to become an apprentice with the renowned Williamstown (Massachusetts) Theatre Festival.

Her stage credits include starring in an off-off-Broadway production of Lucky Lucy and the Fortune Man, as Helena in the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in numerous regional theatre productions, including The Crucible, Hawthorne County and The Maderati (for which she also served as associate producer).

During her recent hiatus, Gilpin worked on the independent feature Spring Forward, in which she stars with Liev Schreiber and Ned Beatty. Gilpin's additional television credits include the NBC film The Secret She Carried, opposite D.W. Moffett and Jere Burns, the NBC film Fight for Justice: The Nancy Conn Story and the "Etherically Yours" episode of The Outer Limits. She was a series regular on Flesh 'N' Blood and has guest-starred in such series as Cheers, Wings, Designing Women and 21 Jump Street.

Gilpin lives in Los Angeles, where she enjoys gardening, entertaining and spending time with her two dogs.

Her birthday is May 27.