Happy Birthday actor Kate Mulgrew

Born: Katherine Kiernan Maria Mulgrew
April 29, 1955 in Dubuque, Iowa, USA

At age 17, she left home and traveled to New York City to study acting. At New York University, she was accepted into Stella Adler’s Conservatory. At the end of her junior year, she left the university to commit herself full time to her craft. Her early career included portraying Mary Ryan for two years on the ABC soap opera Ryan’s Hope (1975) while also playing the role of Emily in the American Shakespeare Theatre production of “Our Town” in Stratford, Connecticut. When Kate was only 23, she played Kate Columbo in a series created especially for her, Mrs. Columbo (1979). In this series, she was playing the wife of one of television’s most beloved detectives, Lt. Columbo. While a critical success, the series was canceled after two seasons.

In 1993, Kate separated from her husband, Robert H. Egan, with whom she had been married for 12 years. In 1995, the divorce became final, and she was on the verge of having to sell her house (and move into an apartment in Westwood) when something incredible happened. She had been called to resume a role in a television series after the original actress, Geneviève Bujold, left two days into filming. What she did not know then was that this role was going to become her most famous one. The role in question was Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager (1995). At the moment, she played Katharine Hepburn in the play “Tea at Five” on some stages in the United States.