Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker was born on April 18, 1944 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for The Golden Boat (1990), IDn4 (1991) and Variety (1983). She was married to Peter Gordon and Robert Acker. She died on November 30, 1997 in Tijuana, Mexico.
Kathy Alberici
Kathy Alberici is an actress, known for Hagazussa (2017).
Kathy Asheton
Kathy Asheton is known for Detroit Rock City (1999), Death of a Gandy Dancer (1978) and Gimme Danger (2016).
Kathy Baker
For someone who has made an award-winning impact in all three mediums (stage, film and TV), actress Kathy Baker has been strangely denied all-out stardom, yet continues to demonstrate her versatility in whatever material comes her way. The comely blonde was born Katherine Whitton Baker in Midland, Texas, to Helene Andree Baker (nee Whitton) and John Seawand Baker, a geologist and educator who taught at both Princeton and the University of Paris. Raised in New Mexico, she first took to the stage at age 10. Influenced by her French-born mother, Kathy attended the University of California at Berkeley and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in French in 1977, then went to Paris to study haute cuisine at the famed Cordon Bleu. She returned to the States to work as a pastry chef, but discovered that she still wanted to act and eventually joined San Francisco's Magic Theatre, where she appeared in the play "The Man Who Killed the Buddha." Her performance drew the immediate attention of playwright Sam Shepard. 1983 was a banner year for Kathy. At the Magic Theatre, wherein she used the stage name of Kathy Whitton Baker, Shepard cast her in a leading role in one of his new plays, "Fool for Love." The premiere garnered exceptional notices and the play (and Kathy) went to New York. She and co-star Ed Harris, won 1984 Obie Awards for their rich performances, as did playwright Shepard for directing. The production itself won the Obie for "Best New American Play." That same year Kathy made a strong movie debut co-starring in The Right Stuff (1983) as the wife of astronaut Alan Shepard (played by Scott Glenn). Displaying an attractive intelligence in her performances, Kathy continued to make strides on the New York stage both in 1984's "Desire Under the Elms" and as a replacement for the Lemon character in the Obie-winning "Aunt Dan and Lemon" at Joseph Papp's Shakespeare Festival in 1986. Later in the decade, both Kathy and Morgan Freeman stole the thunder right from under star Christopher Reeve in the tense film drama Street Smart (1987) with Kathy delivering a grim, heartfelt performance as an ill-fated hooker to Freeman's feral pimp. Both performances delivered a one-two punch and were applauded for their shocking realism. Each received their share of awards and plaudits; Kathy nabbed both the National Society of Critics and Boston Society of Critics awards, but was shamefully snubbed when it came to the Oscar race (Freeman was nominated, but lost). Throughout the rest of the decade Kathy continued to give spot-on performances in such quality films as Clean and Sober (1988), as a recovering addict; Permanent Record (1988), as a wife whose son commits suicide; Jacknife (1989), in which she was reunited with Ed Harris as the put-upon, plain-Jane sister of an alcoholic Vietnam vet; and Edward Scissorhands (1990) as a seemingly model housewife who has an uncontrollably flirtatious nature. Top-flight stardom seemed to be almost a given. With the new decade, however, the movie roles tendered out to her became less frequent or noteworthy so Kathy decided to focus outside her medium of choice and actively search for TV roles. The results were customarily expert. In the slightly quirky Picket Fences (1992), Kathy found a perfect fit taking on the role of small town mother and doctor Jill Brock. Running for four seasons, she was nominated for an Emmy each year and took home the trophy three of those four times for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series". Into the millennium Kathy has maintained consistency with quality roles in such releases as The Glass House (2001), Assassination Tango (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), Nine Lives (2005), All the King's Men (2006), The Jane Austen Book Club (2007), Miss Nobody (2010), Seven Days in Utopia (2011), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017) and The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019). On TV she and Helen Mirren picked up supporting Emmy nods in the bittersweet Door to Door (2002), with Emmy-winning William H. Macy starring as a man with cerebral palsy. In 2001 she joined the cast of Boston Public (2000) as a manipulative mom (another Emmy nomination). Some of those episodes were directed by Steven Robman, whom she married in June of 2003. Kathy has two children from a previous marriage. In addition to guest spots on such TV series as "Fathers and Son," "Nip/Tuck," "Gilmore Girls, "Grey's Anatomy," "Saving Grace," "Medium" (recurring), and "Criminal Minds," she had series roles in Against the Wall (2011), I'm Sorry. (2017) and The Ranch (2016).
Kathy Bates
Multi-talented, multi-award-winning actress Kathleen (Doyle) Bates was born on June 28, 1948, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the youngest of three girls born to Bertye Kathleen (Talbot), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer. Her grandfather was author Finis L. Bates. Kathy has English, as well as Irish, Scottish, and German, ancestry, and one of her ancestors, an Irish emigrant to New Orleans, once served as President Andrew Jackson's doctor. Kathy discovered acting appearing in high school plays and studied drama at Southern Methodist University, graduating in 1969. With her mind firmly set, she moved to New York City in 1970 and paid her dues by working everything from a cash register to taking lunch orders. Things started moving quickly up the ladder after giving a tour-de-force performance alongside Christopher Walken at Buffalo's Studio Arena Theatre in Lanford Wilson's world premiere of "Lemon Sky" in 1970, but she also had a foreshadowing of the heartbreak to come after the successful show relocated to New York's off-Broadway Playhouse Theatre without her and Walken wound up winning a Drama Desk award. By the mid-to-late 1970s, Kathy was treading the boards frequently as a rising young actress of the New York and regional theater scene. She appeared in "Casserole" and "A Quality of Mercy" (both 1975) before earning exceptional reviews for her role of Joanne in "Vanities". She took her first Broadway curtain call in 1980's "Goodbye Fidel," which lasted only six performances. She then went directly into replacement mode when she joined the cast of the already-established and highly successful "Fifth of July" in 1981. Kathy made a false start in films with Taking Off (1971), in which she was billed as "Bobo Bates". She didn't film again until Straight Time (1978), starring Dustin Hoffman, and that part was not substantial enough to cause a stir. Things turned hopeful, however, when Kathy and the rest of the female ensemble were given the chance to play their respective Broadway parts in the film version of Robert Altman's Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). It was a juicy role for Kathy and film audiences finally started noticing the now 34-year-old. Still and all, it was the New York stage that continued to earn Kathy awards and acclaim. She was pure textbook to any actor studying how to disappear into a role. Her characters ranged from free and life-affirming to downright pitiable. Despite winning a Tony Award nomination and Outer Critic's Circle Award for her stark, touchingly sad portrait of a suicidal daughter in 1983's "'night, Mother" and the Obie and Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for her powerhouse job as a romantic misfit in "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune," Kathy had no box-office pull, however, and was never a strong consideration when the roles transferred to the screen. Her award-winning stage went to established film stars. First Sissy Spacek took over her potent role as the suicidal Jessie Cates in 'night, Mother (1986), then Michelle Pfeiffer seized the moment to play her dumpy lover character in Frankie and Johnny (1991). It would take Oscar glory to finally rectify the injustice. It was Kathy's fanatical turn as the drab, chunky, porcine-looking psychopath Annie Wilkes, who kidnaps her favorite author (James Caan) and subjects him to a series of horrific tortures, that finally turned the tide for her in Hollywood. With the 1990 shocker Misery (1990), based on the popular Stephen King novel, Bates and Caan were box office magic. Moreover, Kathy captured the "Best Actress" Oscar and Golden Globe award, a first in that genre (horror) for that category. To add to her happiness she married Tony Campisi, also an actor, in 1991. Quality film scripts now started coming her way and the 1990s proved to be a rich and rewarding time for her. First, she and another older "overnight" film star, fellow Oscar winner Jessica Tandy, starred together in the modern portion of the beautifully nuanced, flashback period piece Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). She then outdid herself as the detached and depressed housekeeper accused of murdering her abusive husband (David Strathairn) in Dolores Claiborne (1995). Surprisingly, she was left out of the Oscar race for these two excellent performances. Not so, however, for her flashy political advisor Libby Holden in the movie Primary Colors (1998), receiving praise and a "Best Supporting Actress" nomination. Kathy has continued to work prolifically on TV as a 14-time Emmy winner or nominee thus far. She has also taken to directing a couple of TV-movies on the sly. As most actors, she has been in hit and miss TV shows. On the hit side, she has earned a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Jay Leno's manager playing tough politics in The Late Shift (1996) and played to the hilt the cruel-minded orphanage operator, Miss Hannigan, in The Wonderful World of Disney: Annie (1999) for which she also earned an Emmy nom. She has done some eye-catching, offbeat turns on regular series such as Six Feet Under (2001) (for which she also earned a DGA award for helming an episode), The Office (2005), Harry's Law (2011) and especially American Horror Story (2011) for which she won an Emmy as Ethel Darling. She also won an Emmy for a guest episode on the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003). Interesting millennium filming have included a Catholic school's Mother Superior in the comic drama Bruno (2000); Jesse James' mother in American Outlaws (2001); a quirky, liberal mom in About Schmidt (2002) for which she earned another "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar nomination; a brief but potent turn as Gertrude Stein in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011); Queen Victoria in the adventurous remake of Around the World in 80 Days (2004); wacky parent types in the comedies Failure to Launch (2006) and Relative Strangers (2006); Mother Claus in the seasonal farce Fred Claus (2007); an over-gushy foster mother in the dramedy The Great Gilly Hopkins (2015); and a wrenching performance as the mother of a suspected terrorist in Richard Jewell (2019) for which she earned her third "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar nomination. Divorced from husband Campisi since 1997, Kathy has been the Executive Committee Chair of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors.
Kathy Bell Denton
Kathy Bell Denton is an actress, known for Someone Marry Barry (2014), Kadís (2010) and Bitch (2006).
Kathy Bernal
Kathy Bernal is known for El Diario (2024).
Kathy Blaze Jefferson
Kathy Blaze Jefferson is an actress originally from Arizona she was first introduced to acting when she attended a Performing Arts program In Hollywood, California. She initially started to model in the plus size modeling industry and later realized that she was passionate about the film industry while watching movies with her 2 girls. Her daughter said Mama you should be an actress, so she started to train with a local agency. Kathy realized that she was always passionate about performing and loved performing with her girls. In 2012 she wanted to create a platform for other talent, so she created a company called Blazing Curves that gave other plus-size talent a platform to showcase their talent. Kathy has worked in casting, training, craft services, image consulting and as a Producer on other productions.
Kathy Boettcher
Kathy Boettcher is known for Reta (2022), The Trunk (2022) and Star-Crossed: The Film (2021).
Kathy Boyd
Kathy Boyd is known for Music City (2018).