Megan Mullally (born November 12, 1958) is an
American actress, singer and
media
personality.
After
working in theatre in Chicago
, Mullally
moved to Los
Angeles
in 1981, and appeared in small or supporting roles
in film and television productions.She made her Broadway
debut in
1994, and has appearance in several musical theatre
productions.
From 1998 until 2006, she played
Karen Walker on the TV
sitcom
Will & Grace.
She won two
Emmy Awards from seven
consecutive nominations in the category of
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, three
Screen Actors Guild
Awards, and was nominated four times for a
Golden Globe Award.
From 2006 until early 2007, Mullally hosted the talk show
The Megan Mullally
Show, but it was cancelled due to poor ratings. She has
since appeared in guest roles in several television programs.
It was recently announced that Mullally is working on a new
Broadway musical entitled
Karen: The Musical, where she
will reprise her role of Karen Walker from
Will &
Grace.
Early life
Mullally
was born in Los Angeles, California
, the daughter of Martha (née Palmer), a model, and Carter
Mullally, Jr., an actor who was a contract player with Paramount Pictures during the
1950s. Mullally moved to her father's native
Oklahoma
City
, Oklahoma
, at the age
of seven. She studied
ballet from the
age of six and performed in a ballet company during high school.
She spent her summers in Los Angeles because of her mother's
work.
Following
her graduation from Casady
School
, she attended Northwestern University
in suburban Chicago; she went on
to study English Literature and
Art History but after two years she
dropped out. However, she became active in local
theaters. She worked in Chicago theater for six
years.
Career
Television
Mullally moved to Los Angeles in 1981. After two weeks as a client
with the
William Morris
Agency, she began appearing in bit parts in films and
television, such as
Murder She
Wrote with
Angela Lansbury.
She made her series debut in
The Ellen Burstyn Show and guest
starred in popular sitcoms such as
Seinfeld,
Frasier,
Wings,
Ned and Stacey,
Mad About You, and
Just Shoot Me!. She auditioned
unsuccessfully for the role of Elaine on
Seinfeld;
Julia
Louis-Dreyfus was cast.
In 1998, Mullally began the role of
Karen Walker,
Grace Adler's shrill-voiced, pill-popping,
eccentric assistant in the
NBC sitcom Will &
Grace. She won the
Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy
Series in 2000 and 2006, and was nominated in 2001, 2002, 2003,
2004, and 2005. She twice won the
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female
Actor in a Comedy Series, in 2002 and 2003, and with cast
members
Eric McCormack,
Debra Messing, and
Sean
Hayes, she shared the
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an
Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2000. She was nominated each
year from 2000 until 2003, for the
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries
or Television Film. Although her own voice has a fairly high
range, she developed an exaggeratedly high one for the character.
However, in the pilot episode of the series, she used her real
voice.
Will & Grace ended in May 2006.
In 2005, Mullally "discovered" comedian and actor
Bill Hader while he was with the troupe "Animals
From The Future," bringing Hader to the attention of
Saturday Night Live producer
Lorne Michaels.
Following
Will & Grace, Mullally hosted her own
talk show,
The Megan Mullally Show, which
was launched in September 2006. It was canceled in early 2007 due
to poor ratings.
Mullally was the host of the 2006
TV Land
Awards. She has been featured in advertisements for
M&M's candies and the website
CheapTickets. Mullally has a voice cameo as the
mother of
Neil Patrick Harris'
character in a recurring role on the CBS sitcom
How I Met Your Mother, and guest
starred on
Campus Ladies. She
was in one episode of the drama
Boston
Legal in 2007.
On July 3, 2008, Mullally appeared in an episode of
Kathy Griffin's
My Life on the
D-List, and appeared on
NBC's hit show
30 Rock on October 30 in the
episode "
Do-Over", alongside her friend Tina
Fey. Mullally played a social worker, part of an adoptive agency,
who made Liz (Fey) jump through hoops to prove she was qualified to
have a child.
Starting March 2009, Mullally co-starred in the
ABC sitcom
In The Motherhood, where
she acts out real-life stories submitted by mothers. The final
episode of the failed sitcom aired on June 25, 2009.
Mullally guest-starred in the
Parks and Recreation episode
"
Ron and Tammy"
as Tammy, ex-wife of her real-life husband,
Nick Offerman, who plays "Ron Swanson" on the
show.
Theatre and music
She made
her Broadway debut in
1994 in a revival of Grease in the role of Marty, with
Rosie O'Donnell and later appeared
in How to Succeed
in Business Without Really Trying with Matthew
Broderick. She is heard in the cast albums of both
productions.
In Los Angeles, she has appeared in her own one-woman show,
Sweetheart, in 1999; in
Charles
L. Mee's
The Berlin
Circle, for which she won both the
LA Weekly Theater Award and the
Back Stage West Garland
Award in 2000; and in Kelly Stuart's
Mayhem in 2003.
She is a member of the Evidence Room theater company.
Mullally starred in the new
Mel Brooks
musical,
Young
Frankenstein, as Elizabeth. The role was made famous by
Madeline Kahn in the
original film. She is featured on the
cast album and performs "
Please
Don't Touch Me," "Deep Love," and "Surprise." Her character is
the wealthy fiancée of the title character, Dr. "Fronkensteen", who
breaks her engagement with Frankenstein after falling in love with
his monster. Her co-stars included
Tony
Award-winners
Roger Bart,
Sutton Foster,
Andrea
Martin, and
Shuler Hensley.
Rehearsals
for the production began in June 2007 and a pre-Broadway run opened
to mixed reviews in Seattle
, Washington
. The show premiered after previews on
November 8, 2007.
Mullally performed her final performance at
the Hilton
Theatre
on August 3, 2008 to focus on the new television
series in which she will play the role of Alicia Silverstone's mother.
Michele Ragusa took over the role of Elizabeth following Mullally's
departure.
Mullally is also a singer and performs in her own group called The
Supreme Music Program. The band has released three albums,
The
Sweetheart Break-In,
Big as a Berry and
Free
Again!. She recorded a duet with
Carly
Simon on the track
The Right Thing To Do for the
Will & Grace: Let the Music Out! soundtrack. The third
album from the SMP was originally titled
The Many Moods… Vol,
1. However, the title was changed before going to print. The
third album,
Free Again!, was released online on July 28,
2007. She also had recorded with
Meatloaf.
She will
be starring in a new Broadway
musical entitled Karen: The
Musical. This musical will have Mullally reprising her
role of Karen Walker from
Will & Grace. Mullally has
stated that the show is currently being written and composed. She
has stated in an interview that the show may also involve the
Will & Grace recurring guest star
Leslie Jordan in his role as Beverley
Leslie.
Film
Her feature film debut was as a call girl in
Risky Business and has parts in
Stealing Harvard,
Anywhere but Here
and the
Martin Lawrence comedy
Rebound. She also is a
voice actress who has done work on
several cartoons, such as the 1990s version
The Flintstones,
Batman: The Animated
Series,
King of the
Hill, the Disney feature film
Teacher's Pet, and the Dreamworks
film
Bee Movie. She also had a
role in the 2001 film "
Monkeybone" as the
sister of a character played by
Brendan
Fraser. Mullally filled the role of a voice instructor in the
film remake of
Fame, which
also starred
Debbie Allen,
Charles S. Dutton,
Kelsey
Grammer,
Bebe Neuwirth, Paul
McGill and
Paul Iacono.
Personal life
In 1999, Mullally reportedly commented in an interview in
The Advocate magazine, "I
consider myself
bisexual, and my philosophy
is, everyone innately is."
Mullally dated actor
William H.
Macy while in college. Her first
marriage, in the mid-1990s, was to talent agent Michael Katcher. In
2003, Mullally married actor
Nick
Offerman, who guest-starred on
Will & Grace during
its fourth season.
She and Offerman currently live in West
Hollywood, California
. Her husband Nick Offerman is now on
Parks and Recreation
with longtime friend
Amy Poehler,
playing her boss Ron. Mullally appears in "
Ron and Tammy", episode
2.8 of
Parks and Recreation, playing Tammy, Ron's
conniving ex-wife.
She has said in interviews that she has frequently been approached
by fans while grocery shopping, some of whom tell her "My friends
tell me I'm just like
Karen,", to which she said
she replies, "Oh, honey, take stock of your life, because that's
not a compliment!"
Filmography
References
-
http://broadwayworld.com/article/The_Return_of_Karen_Walker_in_KAREN_THE_MUSICAL_MetroSources_QA_with_Megan_Mullaly_20090916
- Megan Mullally Biography (1958-)
- Stated in interview on Inside
the Actors Studio
- Stated in a March 2006 episode of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay
Leno
- NBCU Pulls Plug on Megan Mullally - 1/3/2007 4:11:00 PM -
Broadcasting & Cable
- [1]
- Horatio Sanz Embraces Motherhood"
TV Guide.
November 24,
2008. Retrieved on
November 26
2008.
- Leavel, Ragusa and Sullivan Join 'Frankenstein' This
Summer (BroadwayWorld.com)
-
http://broadwayworld.com/article/The_Return_of_Karen_Walker_in_KAREN_THE_MUSICAL_MetroSources_QA_with_Megan_Mullaly_20090916
- Allen, Mullally, Grammer, Dutton & Neuwirth
Join FAME Film Remake
- The Megan Mullally Show
interview with Felicity Huffman.
- Megan Mullally, Biography Resource Center Online. Gale
Group, 1999.
- Jamie Painter Young, Clowning Glory. Back Stage. 19
Dec. 2003: B-38.
External links
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