Twice as nice

Let’s celebrate Mother’s Day by hailing five actresses who have played moms on two (or more) different TV series. It’s not as easy a feat as you might think. After all, many TV-mom stars – Florence Henderson, Marion Ross, Roseanne Barr, Barbara Billingsley, to name four – never again played that role in a subsequent series.

PATRICIA HEATON

The gold standard: She has starred in two superb family sitcoms, as Debra Barone in “Everybody Loves Raymond” (1996-2005) and Frankie Heck in “The Middle” (2009-).

DONNA REED

Starred as wholesome Donna Stone on “The Donna Reed Show” (1958-’66), and later as J.R. and Bobby’s mom, Miss Ellie Ewing, on “Dallas” (1984-’85).

JUDITH LIGHT

High-powered divorcee Angela Bower on “Who’s the Boss?” (1984-’92), followed by the not as well- remembered “Phenom” (1993-’94), in which she played the mother of a teen tennis prodigy.

SHIRLEY JONES

The matriarch of the musical clan in “The Partridge Family” (1970-’74) also returned with a forgettable show, the comedy-drama “Shirley” (1979-’80), in which she played a recently widowed mother of four (Rosanna Arquette and Tracey Gold were two of them).

LUCILLE BALL

OK, so she was basically playing the same character throughout her TV career, but she did appear as a mom in three different series: Lucy Ricardo on “I Love Lucy” (1951-’61), Lucy Carmichael on “The Lucy Show” (1962-’68) and Lucy Carter on “Here’s Lucy” (1968-’74). On the latter, Ball’s real-life kids, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., played her TV kids.