Kate Mulgrew

Katherine Kiernan Maria Mulgrew (born April 29, 1955) is an American actress and author.

She is best known for her roles as Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager and Red in Orange Is the New Black.

She first came to attention in the role of Mary Ryan in the daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope.

Mulgrew is the recipient of a Critics' Choice Award, a Saturn Award, and an Obie Award, and has also received Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

She is a member of the Alzheimer's Association National Advisory Council and the voice of Cleveland's MetroHealth System.

Beginning in 2021, Mulgrew reprised her role as Janeway in the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.

Mulgrew was born in 1955 in Dubuque, Iowa, to Thomas James "T.J."

Mulgrew Jr., a contractor, and Joan Virginia Mulgrew (née Kiernan), an artist and painter.

She was the second of eight children.

She attended Wahlert High School in Dubuque.

She was born with a full set of teeth.

At the age of 17, Mulgrew was accepted at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in New York, conjoined with New York University in New York City.

She supported herself by working as a waitress.

She left NYU after one year.

Mulgrew's early career included portraying Mary Ryan for two years in the ABC soap Ryan's Hope (1975).

She became a fan favorite and remained associated with the show long after its cancellation.

She played ambitious country singer Garnet McGee in a November 1978 episode of Dallas.

In 1979–1980, she played Kate Columbo in Mrs. Columbo, a spin-off of the detective series Columbo created specifically for her, which lasted 13 episodes.

In 1981, Mulgrew co-starred with Richard Burton and Nicholas Clay in the Arthurian love triangle Lovespell as Irish princess Isolt, who casts a spell on Mark, King of Cornwall, and his surrogate son, Tristan.

In 1985, she appeared in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins as Major Fleming.

In 1986, she appeared in a run of Cheers episodes as Janet Eldridge.

In 1987, she appeared in Throw Momma from the Train as Margaret, Billy Crystal's character's ex-wife.

In 1992, Mulgrew appeared on Murphy Brown as Hillary Wheaton, a Toronto-based anchorwoman brought in to replace Murphy during her maternity leave, but who turned out to have the same problem with alcoholism as Brown dealt with at the beginning of the series.

Also in 1992, Mulgrew had a guest-starring role as a soap opera star in Murder, She Wrote, episode number 170, "Ever After".

At around the same time she guest-starred in three episodes of Batman: The Animated Series as the terrorist Red Claw.

In 1994, Mulgrew received a call to take the part of Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager.

She had auditioned for the role (originally named Elizabeth Janeway) when producers announced casting.

She submitted a videotaped audition which she made in New York City in August 1994.

Unhappy with the tape, she auditioned in person a few weeks later.

That day, film actress Geneviève Bujold was selected to play Janeway (suggesting Nicole as the character's new first name), but left the role after two days of filming, realizing that the amount of work required for an episodic television show was too demanding.

Mulgrew was then offered the role, which she accepted, and later suggested Kathryn as the character's final first name.

Mulgrew made history in the Star Trek franchise when she became the first female captain as a series regular in a leading role.

Voyager was the first show broadcast on the new UPN channel, the only series renewed after the channel's first programming season, and its only show to run for seven seasons.

She remained friends with former co-star Ilene Kristen and presented a special Soap Opera Digest Award to Ryan's Hope creator Claire Labine in 1995.

While in Ryan's Hope, she also played Emily Webb in the American Shakespeare Theatre production of Our Town in Stratford, Connecticut.

Mulgrew won the Saturn Award for "Best TV Actress" in 1998 for her performances as Janeway.

Mulgrew voiced the character of Janeway for various Star Trek video games: Star Trek: Captain's Chair, a virtual-reality tour of various Starfleet vessels for home computers; the Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force series; Star Trek: Legacy, which featured all of the captains up to that point (2006); and Star Trek Online.

About her years on Voyager, Mulgrew said:

"I'm proud of it. It was difficult; it was hard work. I'm proud of the work because I think I made some minor difference in women in science. I grew to really love Star Trek: Voyager, and out of a cast of nine, I've made three great friends, I managed to raise two children. I think, 'It's good. I used myself well.'"

In the same year she also co-starred with Pierce Brosnan in the six-hour miniseries Manions of America, about Irish immigrants in 19th-century America.