Dana Delany

Dana Welles Delany (born March 13, 1956) is an American actress.

Then-senior Delany wrote an op-ed in 1974 about her experience of being a one-year student during the school's first year of co-education.

"Andover was the best time of my life," she recalled.

She played the lead role of Nellie Forbush in the school's spring musical production of South Pacific opposite Peter Kapetan as Emile.

She commented: "It was just a little awkward to be Nellie at first because she hesitates to marry Emile since he had once lived with a Polynesian woman – I don't agree with her reasoning so that made things a bit hard at the beginning."

She appeared in a student video directed by classmate Jonathan Meath in a film class taught by Steve Marx.

She graduated in 1974 with the academic honor of nomination to the school chapter of the Cum Laude Society, awarded that year to 80 out of 378 graduating seniors.

She majored in theater at Wesleyan University, where (among other productions) she appeared in one of the first performances of María Irene Fornés feminist play Fefu and Her Friends. Delany also worked summer stock productions during vacations before graduating in 1978.

Later, in an interview, she reported that she sometimes had eating disorders during this time of her life.

She said: "I binged... I starved ... I was one step from anorexia – a piece of toast and an apple would be all I would eat in a day."

After college, she found acting work in New York City in daytime soap operas including Love of Life and As the World Turns, and supported herself by acting in commercials such as for Wisk laundry detergent.

She starred in the Broadway show A Life and won critical acclaim in 1983 in Nicholas Kazan's off-Broadway Blood Moon, where The New York Times cited her "skillful verisimilitude" handling a difficult part requiring two roles "and she does them both with authority."

Delany moved to Hollywood and during the next few years found work guest starring in TV shows like Moonlighting and Magnum, P.I. and Thirtysomething.

Delany's first audition for the lead role of nurse Colleen McMurphy was unsuccessful.

"They thought I wasn't pretty enough", she said in an interview.

She finally won the role after she showed up to her next audition with her "long tresses cut into a bob" after the producers lost their first choice (Delany had cut her hair at the request of director Paul Schrader who had cast her in the film Patty Hearst).

After appearing in small roles early in her career, Delany received her breakthrough role as Colleen McMurphy on the ABC television drama China Beach (1988–1991), for which she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1989 and 1992.

China Beach aired weekly from 1988 to 1991 and brought intense media attention to the actress.

This role not only garnered two Primetime Emmy Awards, but two additional Primetime Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe Award nominations.

The show ended after four seasons in 1991.

In 1991, Delany was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world.

In the years following China Beach, Delany worked steadily in television, movies and theater.

In addition, she established herself as a significant voice talent.

Delany won leading roles in a string of feature films such as the TV movie A Promise to Keep, Light Sleeper, Housesitter and Fly Away Home as well as appearing in the TV mini-series Wild Palms.

She also took on controversial roles, such as Mistress Lisa in Exit to Eden, where one film critic commented "The script was awful—Dana looked great."

She received further recognition for her appearances in the films Light Sleeper (1992), Tombstone (1993), Exit to Eden (1994), The Margaret Sanger Story (1995), Fly Away Home (1996), True Women (1997), and Wide Awake (1998).

Delany also provided the voice of Lois Lane in Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.

In 1992, she turned in her best known performance of the decade in the blockbuster Tombstone alongside Kurt Russell's Wyatt Earp, playing his love interest and future bride Josephine Marcus.

In 1993, Delany was paired with Charles Bronson to lead in the CBS television film Donato and Daughter, directed by Rod Holcomb.

In it, Bronson plays Delany's father, and are both cops assigned to investigate a serial killer.

In the 2000s, Delany appeared in main roles on several short-lived television series, including Pasadena (2001), Presidio Med (2002–2003), and Kidnapped (2006–2007).

From 2007 to 2010, she starred as Katherine Mayfair on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives, for which she received a Prism Award in 2009.

Delany then starred as Megan Hunt on the ABC medical drama Body of Proof (2011–2013), and as Crystal Harris on the Amazon Prime Video drama series Hand of God (2014–2017).

Delany was born in New York City, the daughter of interior designer Mary Burnett Welles and John Joseph Delany, CEO of Coyne & Delany Co., a major flushometers and flush valves manufacturer in the USA.

She has a sister, Corey, and a brother, Sean.

She was raised Roman Catholic.

She has stated that, even as a little girl, she always wanted to go into acting.

"The reason a person first gets into acting is because you want attention from your parents as a little girl," she told a reporter.

In her childhood, she went with her family to many Broadway shows and was fascinated by films.

After growing up in Stamford, Connecticut, she attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, for her senior year and was a member of the school's first co-educational class.