Gail O'Grady

The late 1980s were spent doing what everyone does, which is small parts: a victim in a Volkswagen on the horror series Werewolf, a bit in She's Having a Baby, single episodes of Designing Women, China Beach and Anything But Love. Then NYPD Blue arrived in 1993, and Donna Abandando, the squad's administrative aide, turned into one of that show's genuine pleasures. O'Grady has three Primetime Emmy nominations to her name.

What she does better than most is play warmth with a spine underneath it. Donna was written as decorative and O'Grady kept declining to play her that way. The same thing happens with Helen Pryor in American Dreams, a mother in a 1960s family drama who could easily have been wallpaper and who instead runs the emotional accounting of the whole show.

After that she became a leading lady of the American television movie, which is a real job and an unglamorous one: Sex & the Single Mom and its sequel, Trial by Fire, While the Children Sleep, The Mystery Cruise, Identity Theft of a Cheerleader. A long run of leads, most of them shot fast, and she is consistently better than the material.

Her guest work is where a casual viewer finds her now, in Boston Legal, Criminal Minds, Revenge, Hellcats and The Crazy Ones, and she is still taking series work: Charlotte Dean-Ellis in Duster in 2025, and a president in the 2025 feature President Down.