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Marg Helgenberger
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Date of birth: 16 November 1958,
Birth Place: Fremont, Nebraska, USA
Red-haired leading lady with an open-faced, smoothly
forceful manner, primarily on TV beginning in the mid-1980s. Helgenberger
began on the small screen as the feisty rookie police officer Siobhan
Ryan on ABC's Irish-flavored daytime soap, "Ryan's Hope". She
began doing guest spots on primetime and landed a regular role in support
of Margot Kidder and James Reid on the short-lived CBS series about two
former con artists, "Shell Game" (1987). Helgenberger had considerably
better luck on her second series, winning an Emmy for the adult and provocative
Vietnam War drama, "China Beach" (1988-91). As K.C., a prostitute
who attaches herself to a M.A.S.H. unit in Vietnam, Helgenberger brought
some fine character shadings and forthright feminist insights to her spunky,
hard-bitten character. She subsequently kept busy in a series of mostly
routine TV-movies and miniseries, several of them ("Death Dreams"
1991, "Lie Down with the Lions" 1994) made for the Lifetime
cable channel. "Steven King's The Tommyknockers" (ABC, 1993)
was not one of the better made-for-TV King adaptations, but "Peacemaker"
(PBS, 1991) was a thoughtful drama of life in the nuclear 1950s. Helgenberger
has also made a handful of feature appearances. The sentimental but touching
Steven Spielberg fantasy "Always" (1989) and the unjustly overlooked
"Crooked Hearts" (1991) were two of her better films, and her
leading role in "The Cowboy Way" (1994) offered Helgenberger
her widest feature exposure to date. In 1996, she played a recurring role
as a love interest for Dr. Doug Ross (George Clooney) on the hit NBC medical
drama "ER". She later returned to series TV as a regular on
the Las Vegas-set "C.S.I." (CBS, 2000- ), casted as a senior
forensics investigator Gil Grissom. After making her feature debut as
an all-night answering service operator in the mediocre anthology thriller
"After Midnight", Helgenberger had a small role in Steven Spielberg's
engaging fantasy "Always" (both 1989), but her bread-and-butter
through the 90s would be TV-movies and miniseries, quite a few ("Death
Dreams" 1991, "A Friend in Need" segment of "The Hidden
Room" series in 1991, "Lie Down with the Lions" 1994, "Giving
Up the Ghost" 1998, "Keys to Her Past" 1999) made for the
Lifetime cable channel. Though "Stephen King's The Tommyknockers"
(ABC, 1993) was not one of the better made-for-TV King adaptations, "Peacemaker"
(PBS, 1991) was a thoughtful drama of life in the nuclear 1950s, and CBS'
"In Sickness and in Health" (1992) offered her the plum role
of Mickey, the lusty caretaker who befriends her charge (Lesley Ann Warren)
suffering from multiple sclerosis, only to betray that trust by sleeping
with her husband (Tom Skerritt). Her leading role in "The Cowboy
Way" (1994) offered Helgenberger some feature exposure, as did "Species"
(1995) and its regrettable 1998 sequel "Species II", "My
Fellow American" (1996) and "Fire Down Below" (1997), but
nothing about her work in these films would erase perceptions of her as
a TV actress. With Tom Hanks' "I'll Be Waiting" (1993) segment
of the "Fallen Angels" series, Helgenberger began an association
with Showtime which would include Peter Weller's "Partners"
(1994, from the "Directed By" series), "Conundrum"
(1996), "Elmore Leonard's Gold Coast" (1997), "Thanks of
a Grateful Nation" (1998) and "Happy Face Murders" (1999).
Excellent as the sex-starved widow of "Gold Coast", which reteamed
her with Weller, she delivered arguably her best performance as the sister
of a veteran felled by Gulf War Syndrome in the critically-acclaimed "Thanks
of a Grateful Nation". She was equally terrific in NBC's "Murder
Live!" (1997) as shallow talk-show host Pia Postman, not to mention
portraying Patsy Ramsey in "Perfect Town, Perfect Murder" (2000),
a thoughtful CBS miniseries look into the killing of JonBenet Ramsey.
That year also found her in her biggest feature success to date, playing
the woman whose medical condition leads Julia Roberts to uncover evidence
of corporate wrongdoing in Steven Soderbergh's "Erin Brockovich".
8th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (2002) (TV)
.... Presenter
"C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation" (2000) TV Series .... Catherine
Willows
... aka "C.S.I." (2000) (USA: short title)
Erin Brockovich (2000) .... Donna Jensen
"Perfect Murder, Perfect Town" (2000) (mini) TV Series ....
Patsy Ramsey
"Partners" (1999) TV Series .... Eve Darrin
Lethal Vows (1999) (TV) .... Ellen Farris
Happy Face Murders (1999) (TV) .... Jen Powell
Giving Up the Ghost (1998) (TV) .... Anna
Thanks of a Grateful Nation (1998) (TV) .... Jerrilynn Folz
... aka Gulf War, The (1998) (TV)
Species II (1998) .... Dr. Laura Baker
Gold Coast (1997) (TV) .... Karen DiCilia
... aka Elmore Leonard's Gold Coast (1997) (TV)
Fire Down Below (1997) .... Sarah Kellogg
Last Time I Committed Suicide, The (1997) .... Lizzy
Murder Live! (1997) (TV) .... Pia Postman
My Fellow Americans (1996) (uncredited) .... Joanna
Conundrum (1996) (TV) .... Rose Ekberg
... aka Frame by Frame (1996/II) (TV)
Just Looking (1995) .... Darlene Carpenter
Inflammable (1995) (TV) .... Lieutenant JG Kay Dolan
Species (1995) .... Dr. Laura Baker
Bad Boys (1995) .... Alison Sinclair
Blind Vengeance (1994)
Keys (1994) (TV) .... Maureen 'Kick' Kickasola
... aka Keys to Her Past (1994) (TV) (USA)
Partners (1994) (TV) .... Georgeanne Bidwell
Where Are My Children? (1994) (TV) .... Vanessa
Lie Down with Lions (1994) (TV) .... Kate Nessen
... aka Red Eagle (1994) (TV)
Cowboy Way, The (1994) .... Margarette
"Fallen Angels" (1993) TV Series .... Eve Cressy (I'll Be Waiting)
Distant Cousins (1993) .... Connie
... aka Desperate Motive (1993)
"When Love Kills: The Seduction of John Hearn" (1993) (mini)
TV Series .... Debbie Banister
Tommyknockers, The (1993) (TV) .... Bobbi Anderson
... aka Stephen King's The Tommyknockers (1993) (TV)
Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992) (TV) .... Laurie Fisher
... aka Master Builder, The (1992) (TV)
In Sickness and in Health (1992) (TV) .... Mickey
... aka Hearts on Fire (1992) (TV)
Death Dreams (1991) (TV) .... Crista
Crooked Hearts (1991) .... Jenetta
Blind Vengeance (1990) (TV) .... Virginia Whitelaw
Always (1989) .... Rachel
After Midnight (1989) .... Alex
"China Beach" (1988) TV Series .... K.C. (Karen Charlene) Koloski
China Beach (1988) (TV) .... K.C. Koloski
"Shell Game" (1987) TV Series .... Natalie Thayer
"Ryan's Hope" (1975) TV Series .... Siobhan Ryan Novak #3 (1982-1986
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