Biography of Katherine Helmond

Katherine Helmond, honored with two Golden Globe awards and six Emmy nominations, is best known for her role as Jessica Tate in ABC's groundbreaking sitcom, Soap. This television role brought popular success to the respected stage actress who got her start in community theater while still in high school.

Running from 1977 through 1981, Soap's edgy comedy satirized America's foibles and lampooned sensationalized tabloid entertainment. Helmond followed that landmark performance with an 8-year run as Mona on Who's the Boss. She appeared for three seasons on Coach, and currently has a recurring role on Everybody Loves Raymond. She has numerous film and television credits and has directed in both media. Her well-known performance in Terry Gilliams's film Brazil has brought her great acclaim.

Critically acclaimed on the stage, Helmond has performed in an impressive array of contemporary and classic plays, and has won multiple awards for her stunning portrayal of the tragi-comic figure Bananas in the original production of John Guare's House of Blue Leaves. Most recently she has appeared in both the New York and Los Angeles productions of The Vagina Monologues.

Helmond's experiences have made her particularly sensitive to issues concerning women's health and wellness, and her dedication to causes involving domestic violence, women's rights and women's health has kept her at work both privately and in the public eye. She has sponsored a shelter for battered women for more than 20 years and is an outspoken advocate for better treatment of women, children and animals.

Helmond can entrance audiences with dramatic readings drawn from her vast repertoire. She also talks about her journey from growing up in a single-parent family in Galveston to where she is today, incorporating amusing anecdotes about the world of entertainment along the way.

Katherine Helmond was born in Galveston, Texas. There she was inspired to pursue acting by seeing a touring production of Darkness at Noon. Her community theater performances in Galveston were followed by professional initiation at the Houston Playhouse and the Margo Jones Theater in Dallas. Then came several years in summer stock and some of the country's most important repertory theaters. In the late 1950s she realized a dream by opening her own summer theater in the Catskill Mountains. Among the companies she later joined were the Associated Producing Artists in New York and Trinity Square Repertory Company in Rhode Island.

As her reputation grew, Helmond was invited to teach acting at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, UCLA, Brown University in Rhode Island, and Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The experience of teaching gave her a chance to reach young people with her passion and dedication to her art form.

Helmond's dramatic honors include a 1973 Tony award nomination for Eugene O'Neill's Great God Brown on Broadway, a Clarence Derwent Award and a New York Drama Critics Award, as well as a 1971 Obie nomination for her performance in House of Blue Leaves. She won Golden Globes in 1981 for Soap and in 1989 for Who's the Boss. Her many honors include awards from Women in Show Business and from DePaul University for Excellence in the Arts. In 1992 she was given the Topaz Award by Women in Film.