Celebrating Kate Mulgrew’s Illustrious Career; Star Trek and Other SF/F Roles
Katherine Kiernan Maria Mulgrew was born April 29, 1955 IN Dubuque, Iowa. She is an actress, best known to SciFi.Radio fans as Captain Kathryn Janeway, captain of the U.S.S. Voyager. She reprised the role In Star Trek: Prodigy, as Admiral Janeway, and Hologram Janeway, the training hologram aboard the Prodigy.
Soap opera fans will remember her as Mary Ryan on Ryan’s Hope and Rachel Clement in The Manions of America. Mystery fans may recall her as Mrs. Columbo on the short-lived spin-off Mrs. Columbo. She starred in the Arthurian romance Lovespell as Isolt, beloved of both King Mark of Cornwall and Sir Tristan.
In addition to Star Trek, Kate Mulgrew had a recurring role on Warehouse 13 as Jane Lattimer, mother of Agent Pete Lattimer. She was also a Warehouse Regent.
Like many Star Trek actors, she worked on Disney’s Gargoyles, where she voiced Titania, Queen of the Fair Folk, ex-wife of Oberon and mother of Fox, by her second husband, human businessman Halcyon Renard, grandmother of Alexander Xanatos.
Mulgrew played Drew Finch in the Showtime series The Man Who Fell to Earth.
In 1998 Mulgrew won the Saturn Award for Best TV Actress for her portrayal of Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager.
Voicework
Kate Mulgrew has an impressive resume for voicework, starting with but not limited to reprising Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek cartoons and video games. In Infinity Train, she voiced Cat. She voiced Dr. C, aka Dr. Racine Cleo in Flex Armstrong and the Flex Fighters, which also featured Star Trek regulars Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekhov on Star Trek: the Original Series) and Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: the Next Generation). In the video game Fragmented Empire, Mulgrew voiced Jules Avalon. She gave voice to Flemeth in the video games Dragon Age:Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, and Dragon Age II. She was Dr. Mek in the game Run Like Hell. In Batman: the Animated Series Mulgrew voiced the terrorist Red Claw. She voiced Lady Kreya in the video game Lords of Everquest.
Other voice roles included guest appearances on Mighty Max, Wild West C.O.W.Boys of Moo Mesa, and Pirates of Dark Water.
Mulgrew on Star Trek
About her years on Star Trek: “I’m proud of it. It was difficult; it was hard work. I’m proud of the work because I think I made some little difference in women in science. I grew to really love Captain Janeway, 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.”
“The best and worst part about playing a Star Trek captain? The best thing was simply the privilege and the challenge of being able to take a shot at the first female captain, transcending stereotypes that I was very familiar with. [I was] able to do that in front of millions of viewers. That was a remarkable experience—and it continues to resonate. The downside of that is also that it continues to resonate, and threatens to eclipse all else in one’s long career if one does not up the ante and stay at it, in a way that may not ordinarily be necessary. I have to work at changing and constantly reinventing myself in a way that probably would not have happened had Star Trek not come along. I knew that going in, and I think that all of the perks attached to this journey have been really inexpressively great. So the negatives are small.” (September/October 2006, Star Trek Magazine issue #1)
Personal Life
Kate Mulgrew was married to director Robert H.Egan from 1982 to 1995. She remarried Ohio politician Timothy Hagan in 1999; they divorced in 2014; it was a second marriage for both of them. Mulgrew has children, sons Ian Thomas Egan and Alexander James Egan, daughter Danielle, stepdaughters Eleanor Hagan, and Marie Hagan.
We wish Kate Mulgrew a happy birthday, and hope she is able to spends the day with friends and family. As her Trek colleague Sir Patrick Stewart. has proved, 67 is nothing to an actor. Mulgrew has written two memoirs, Born with Teeth (2015) and How to Forget (2019).
We wish her success in her future endeavors, both theatrical and literary.
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Susan Macdonald is the author of the children’s book “R is for Renaissance Faire”, as well as 26 short stories, mostly fantasy in “Alternative Truths”, “Swords and Sorceress #30”, Swords &Sorceries Vols. 1, 2, & 5, “Cat Tails” “Under Western Stars”, and “Knee-High Drummond and the Durango Kid”. Her articles have appeared on SCIFI.radio’s web site, in The Inquisitr, and in The Millington Star. She enjoys Renaissance Faires (see book above), science fiction conventions, Highland Games, and Native American pow-wows.
