Megan Mullally (born November 12, 1958) is an American actress, talk show host and singer.

After working in theatre in Chicago, Megan 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 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, Megan 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.

Biography

Megan 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. Megan 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, where she majored in Drama, switching to English Literature and Art History after a short while. However she became active in local theater and eventually left college without graduating. She worked in Chicago theater for six years.

Megan 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, Megan 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, Megan "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, Megan 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.

Megan was the host of the 2006 TV Land Awards. She has been featured in advertisements for M&M's candies and the website CheapTickets. Megan 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, Megan 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, alongside her friend Tina Fey. Megan played a social worker, part of an adoptive agency, who made Liz (Fey) jump though hoops, to prove she was qualified to have a child.

Starting March 2009, Megan co-stars in the ABC sitcom In The Motherhood, where she acts out real-life stories submitted by mothers.

Megan 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.

Megan 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, Elizabeth, 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 and a pre-Broadway run opened to mixed reviews in Seattle, Washington. The show premiered after previews on November 8, 2007. Megan 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.

Megan 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.

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. Megan filled the role of a voice instructor in the upcoming film remake of Fame which will also star Debbie Allen, Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Neuwirth, Paul McGill and Paul Iacono.

Megan commented in an interview in The Advocate magazine, "I consider myself bisexual, and my philosophy is, everyone innately is."

Megan dated actor William H. Macy while in college. Her first marriage, in the mid-1990s, was to talent agent Michael Katcher. In 2003, Megan married actor Nick Offerman (who guest-starred on Will & Grace during its fourth season). She and Offerman currently live in West Hollywood, California.

This Megan Mullally Biography Page is Copyright © 2004 - 2009 Chuck Ayoub