Linda Purl will play the part of Barbara Pelt in True Blood’s Season 5, according to her twitter post below:
@lindapurl Linda Purl
Great news! I’m joining the cast of “True Blood” for its fifth season playing Barbara Pelt (Debbie’s mother). Shooting starts next week!
Linda Purl was born in Connecticut and raised in Japan, becoming the only foreigner to train at the Toho Geino Academy. At the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo, she played the role of Louis in ‘The King and I’ (in Japanese), Bet in ‘Oliver’ and the role of Helen in ‘The Miracle Worker’.
She then went to England to study under Marguerite Beale, before returning to the United States to study at the Lee Strasberg Institute, and later with Robert Lewis. Her stage credits include: The Broadway musical ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’; ‘Getting and Spending’, which ran on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre.
Recently she has been seen in several TV series, such as Homeland, The Office, Desparate Housewives, just to name a few.
Source: https://twitter.com/#!/lindapurl
