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Kate Mulgrew
VOL. 15
NO. 5 JUNE 2015
In her new memoir, BORN WITH TEETH, Kate Mulgrew explores family ties, her long and varied career, living in Seattle and the mysteries of love
K
ate Mulgrew is known for the strong women she’s played on television— Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, the tough-as-nails “Red” on Orange is the New Black and her breakout role as Mary Ryan on Ryan’s Hope—but her first love is theater. Kate Mulgrew lived in Seattle for a time and often appeared at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Pictured here is the cast of Seattle Rep’s “Another Part of the Forest” Kate Mulgrew is best known for her roles as Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, Red on (1981), with Kate second from right Orange is the New Black and Mary Ryan on Ryan’s Hope
Theater, and the need for a quick escape from an ardent Italian suitor, brought Kate Mulgrew to Seattle and the Kate Mulgrew was born April 29, first of many roles at Seattle 1955 in Dubuque, Iowa. She was raised Repertory Theatre. By the time in a large family of unconventional she arrived in Seattle, Kate was Irish Catholics who knew “how to already a recognized star of stage drink, how to dance, how to talk, and and screen. how to stir up the In her book, Kate devil.” She grew writes of beginning up with poetry her relationship with and drama in Seattle’s venerable her bones. But theater: “The Seattle her mother, a Repertory Theatre would-be artist gave the impression of who came from a intimacy but boasted world where she a capacity of eight danced with Jack hundred seats. The Kennedy at the stage was wide and Inaugural Ball, was deep, the space was burdened by the dark and muted, and I endless arrival of was home.” new babies. Young At that production Kate saw the she met her first consequences of husband, Robert Egan. a dream deferred. “Black Irish looks of Determined to the most dangerous, pursue her own Kate Mulgrew was in Seattle in April to and therefore, the most discuss her new book, Born With Teeth dreams no matter appealing, kind,” she the cost, at age18 wrote of the meeting. The two lived in Kate left her small Midwestern town a series of Seattle houses, starting with for New York, where, studying with a small blue house on Queen Anne. It the legendary Stella Adler, she learned was there she brought home from the the lesson that would define her as hospital her first son, Ian. The family an actress: “Use it,” Adler told her. moved to Los Angeles shortly before her “Whatever disappointment, pain or second son, Alexander, was born. anger life throws in your path, channel
it into the work.” It was a lesson she would soon need. In a recent interview with Anthony Mason on CBS Sunday Morning, Kate discussed a painful chapter of her life that happened at the beginning of her career. “By age 20 she landed a starring role in a new soap opera about an Irish family bar in the city, called Ryan’s Hope,” reported Mason. “She was catapulted overnight to stardom.” In the interview, Kate recalls, “Whole gaggles of girls would stop me on the streets of New York, ‘Mary Ryan! Mary Ryan!’ I remember that. It was big.” Mason continues: “That first season she was on top of the world. And then, she got pregnant. The father was an assistant director. Marriage was out of the question.” “He’s a good, good guy. We were just too young,” Kate told Mason. Her mother advised putting up the baby for adoption through Catholic Charities. At the same time, the producers of Ryan’s Hope wrote her pregnancy into the plot line. “Six million people watched me have this baby,” said Mulgrew in the interview. “And I had the baby. And I gave the baby up and went back to work two days later.”
It was a decision she regretted almost immediately, but it was too late. She begged Catholic Charities to return her baby. The answer was no. Kate describes going back to work, where her first scene was giving birth. “That was the hardest moment of my life—walking onto that set with that stunt baby and delivering a monologue about love, fidelity, endurance, and ‘I will never leave you,’ without falling apart,” Kate revealed to Mason. She left Ryan’s Hope, but Kate’s star continued to rise. Her life became increasingly demanding and fulfilling: a whirlwind of passionate love affairs, life-saving friendships, bone-crunching work and a warm family life with two sons. Through it all, Kate remained haunted by the loss of her first child and she never stopped looking for her. As dramatically recounted in the book, Kate was finally reunited with her daughter but it would take more than 20 years. By then, Kate was fully immersed in her iconic role on Star Trek. “It was as if I were shot out of a cannon, life changed so quickly and so dramatically,” writes Kate of playing continued on page 14