Lara Jill Miller (born April 20, 1967) is an American actress and voice-over artist. She had a starring role as Samantha "Sam" Kanisky on the 1980s sitcom Gimme a Break! and as Kathy on The Amanda Show. As a voice actress, she had roles in English dubs of Japanese anime such as Kari in Digimon Adventure and Koko in Zatch Bell!. In cartoons, she voices the title characters in Clifford's Puppy Days, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee and Henry Hugglemonster. She also voices Izzy in SciGirls, Widget in Wow Wow Wubbzy and Allie in Curious George.

Biography

Miller was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Allentown's William Allen High School. Her mother was a homemaker and her father a pajama factory owner. Miller's professional acting career began on Broadway, where she appeared as Amaryllis in a revival of The Music Man with Dick Van Dyke.

In 1981, after her appearance on Broadway, she joined the cast of Gimme a Break!, playing the role of the tomboyish Samantha "Sam" Kanisky, opposite Nell Carter. When the series ended its six-year run on NBC in 1987, Miller returned east, to New York University, where she also played on the university's women's varsity tennis team and continued to perform on stages around the country. Four years later, she graduated from Fordham University School of Law, leaving graduation early to portray Peter Pan in a production at the Pennsylvania Youth Theater in Pennsylvania. She subsequently obtained her Bar association license to practice law in New Jersey, New York and her native Pennsylvania.

In 1999, Miller returned to Hollywood, California and resumed her on-camera acting career with recurring roles on the Nickelodeon series The Amanda Show and All That, as well as General Hospital. She also began working in animated series, lending her voice to characters such as Kari in Digimon (both the series and the feature film), Koko in Zatch Bell!, Alejo in Astro Boy, one of the Tachikoma mini-tanks in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and Scheris Adjani in s-CRY-ed. Miller also provided the singing voice of Dorothy Gale in the National Public Radio adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the voices of the titular characters on Cartoon Network's The Life and Times of Juniper Lee and the PBS Kids "prequel" to Clifford the Big Red Dog, Clifford's Puppy Days.

Miller's roles include the recurring roles of Pookie, Wiki, and Tini on Disney Channel's Higglytown Heroes, Heruka of Daigunder, and the Nick Jr series Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! as Widget, the show's problem-solving pink creature resembling a rabbit, both PBS series Curious George as Allie and SciGirls as Izzie, and regular guest-starring roles on several other animated series.

As of January 2015, she is doing voice work on two Disney Channel/Disney Junior television series, as the voice of Lambie in Doc McStuffins and the voice of the titular character in Henry Hugglemonster.