Katey Sagal (born January 19, 1954) is an American actress and singer-songwriter, best known for portraying Peggy Bundy on Married... with Children, Cate Hennessy on 8 Simple Rules, Turanga Leela on Futurama and Gemma Teller Morrow on Sons of Anarchy.

Biography

Early life

Sagal was born Catherine Louise Sagal in Hollywood, California, to a show business family; she is the daughter of director Boris Sagal, best known for his work on 1960s television dramas, including The Twilight Zone. Her mother, Sara Zwilling, was a producer. Sagal is the older sister of twin actresses Jean and Liz Sagal, best remembered as the Doublemint Twins of the early 1980s, and for their own short-lived sitcom of that era, Double Trouble. She is also the sister of actor Joe Sagal. She is distant cousin of Russian Communist Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev. Sagal and her siblings grew up in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, Los Angeles. She studied at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.

Career

Sagal began her career working the Hollywood circuit. She appeared in several made for TV movies between 1971 and 1975, including a small role as a receptionist in the Columbo film Candidate for Crime (directed by her father) and in 1973 working as a backing vocalist for various singers, including Bob Dylan and Tanya Tucker.

In 1978, KISS bassist Gene Simmons asked her to sing background vocals on his self-titled solo album. During this time she was also a member of the rock group The Group With No Name. She also sang backup for Bette Midler, who hired her for her 1979 tour as one of The Harlettes.

Sagal returned to television in 1985 in the television series Mary starring Mary Tyler Moore. This led to her being cast as Peggy Bundy on the sitcom Married... with Children (1987–1997). She portrayed the lower-class, sex-starved wife of shoe salesman Al Bundy. During her audition for the role, Sagal brought her own red bouffant wig and with the producers' approval, the look transitioned into the show. As Peg, she wore the wig, capris-length leggings with a large belt, and high slip-on heels, which were all fashion styles from the 1960s. Sagal's career focused almost entirely on this series for its 11-year run. Sagal briefly revisited her role of Peg Bundy in Married... with Children, when the sitcom was parodied in the Futurama episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two".
After the end of Married... with Children, several more television films followed for Sagal, and she was also a featured voice on the children's cartoon Recess as the voice of Spinelli's mother. In 1999, Matt Groening cast her as Turanga Leela in his science fiction cartoon comedy Futurama. The show developed a cult following, but was canceled after five seasons. However, airings in syndication on Cartoon Network and Comedy Central. increased the show's popularity and led Comedy Central to commission a series of Futurama direct-to-DVD films, which the network later rebroadcast as 16 episodes. Sagal reprised her role as Leela in these films, and it has been confirmed that she will voice Leela again in the upcoming 26 episode season due to air in 2010.
Sagal also guest starred as Edna Hyde, Steven Hyde's mother, in three episodes of That '70s Show: "Punk Chick" (1999), "Prom Night" (1999), and "The Career Day" (1999). She starred in the short-lived NBC sitcom Tucker in 2000. Sagal was also cast in the Disney Channel movie Smart House, playing a computerized maid that suddenly gets a mind of its own. She wore the same wig for the role as she did for Married... with Children.

Sagal was cast as the wife of John Ritter in the sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter in 2002. Following Ritter's death, Sagal carried most of the show (with help from new cast members David Spade and James Garner). Ritter completed only three episodes of the second season of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, with Sagal introducing each episode. The show was canceled in 2005 after its third season.

In 2005, she made two guest appearances on Lost, one guest appearance on CBS's Ghost Whisperer and another guest appearance on The Shield. She hosted The Search for the Funniest Mom In America 2 and she had a recurring role as a guest star on Boston Legal.

In 2007, she had a role in the season finale of The Winner as Glen Abbot's former, and Josh's current, teacher, with whom Glen has his first sexual experience. She also reprised her role in The Shield for one episode.

In 2008, she appeared in four episodes of Eli Stone as Marci Klein, one of the founding partners of the show's law firm. She has a starring role as Gemma Teller Morrow on the TV show Sons of Anarchy, created by her husband Kurt Sutter.

In January 2009, Sagal reunited with her TV son David Faustino (Bud Bundy from Married with Children) for an episode of Faustino's show Star-ving.

Musical career

Sagal is also a songwriter. In 1976, while a member of The Group With No Name, she contributed to the album Moon over Brooklyn. She also performed backing vocals on the self-titled solo album by Gene Simmons as well as background vocals on Olivia Newton-John's 1985 single "Soul Kiss". On April 19, 1994, she released her first solo album, Well.... Ten years later, on June 1, 2004, she released her second album, Room.

Personal life

Sagal was married to Freddie Beckmeier (1978–1981) and Jack White (November 26, 1993 – July 24, 2000). In 1991, Sagal discovered she was pregnant. This was unexpected by the directors of Married... with Children, so the pregnancy was written into the storyline of the show. However, in October 1991, she had to have an emergency caesarean section in her seventh month of pregnancy, ending in the stillbirth of a daughter, whom Sagal named Ruby Jean. The pregnancy on the show was then regarded as a "dream", because it would have been too painful for Sagal to see an infant on set at the time. She had one other early miscarriage around this time as well. She and White had a daughter (Sarah Grace) and a son (Jackson James).

Sagal married Kurt Sutter (a writer, producer, and actor for The Shield) in a private ceremony on October 2, 2004, at their home in Los Feliz, California. They had their first child together, daughter Esme Louise, on January 10, 2007. Esme was carried by a surrogate mother.

Selected works