Carolyn Hennesy
Carolyn Hennesy is an actor, born 1962.
Carolyn Hennesy has two careers and they barely overlap. On television she is one of the reliably busy character actresses in Los Angeles; away from it she writes novels for younger readers and works as an animal advocate.
The screen career began with guest spots and television movies, including Dark Justice and Deadly Invasion: The Killer Bee Nightmare, and turned durable with a recurring role as Mrs. Valentine on Dawson's Creek. Daytime is where she became a genuine fixture: as Diane Miller on General Hospital she picked up two Daytime Emmy nominations, and she plays the part with a theatrical relish that suits the form, where the writing changes weekly and the actor is the only continuity anyone has.
The comic register is the one to watch for. Barbara Coman on Cougar Town, Rhoda Chesterfield on Jessie, Grandma Gayle on Champions and Toni in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life are all variations on a woman who is unimpressed and openly enjoying herself about it. In film she takes the bit parts a face like hers attracts, from a rich woman in Terminator 3 to Kathy O'Doyle in Click, and she does horror as well, playing Mother Superior in St. Agatha. There is a parallel voice career too: Bambi's mother in Bambi II, Mrs. Godfrey in Big Nate, and General Leia Organa in LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars, a job with a considerable weight of history behind it.
The books are the surprise. She writes the Pandora novels, a young-adult series built out of Greek myth, and it is a real second occupation rather than a celebrity byline.
Movies (11)
TV (11)
Books (1)
Where to start with Carolyn Hennesy
Try Cougar Town first. It is the best sitcom she has been a regular presence on, and Barbara Coman is the character she plays better than anyone else could: worldly, entirely shameless, never once asking for sympathy. Her scenes work as a standalone sampler.
For the family-audience version, Jessie hands her Rhoda Chesterfield, a character written as a cartoon and performed with real timing, while Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is a short sighting for completists.
On film, Click and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines are the mainstream credits, St. Agatha is the horror outlier and the most against-type thing here, and Bambi II has her voicing one of the most loaded roles in animation history.
Then read Pandora gets greedy. Her Greek-myth novels for younger readers are the least expected item on this page and the one nearly everybody misses.