Katherine Kiernan Mulgrew, or Kate Mulgrew, was born on April 29, 1955. She grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, the oldest girl in an Irish Catholic family of eight. When Kate, as a 12-year-old, expressed an interest in acting, her mother, Joan, brought home biographies of great actresses and sent Kate to summer acting schools. At age 17, she left home and traveled to New York City to study acting. At New York University, she was accepted into Stella Adler's Conservatory. At the end of her junior year, she left the university to commit herself full time to her craft. Her early career included portraying Mary Ryan for two years on the ABC soap opera Ryan's Hope (1975) while also playing the role of Emily in the American Shakespeare Theatre production of "Our Town" in Stratford, Connecticut. When Kate was only 23, she played Kate Columbo in a series created especially for her, Mrs. Columbo (1979). In this series, she was playing the wife of one of television's most beloved detectives, Lt. Columbo. While a critical success, the series was canceled after two seasons.Kate also starred in several feature films, such as Lovespell (1981), A Stranger Is Watching (1982) with Rip Torn, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) and Throw Momma from the Train (1987) with Danny DeVito. In 1981, she traveled to Europe to film the ABC miniseries The Manions of America (1981) with Pierce Brosnan. About that time, she married theater director Robert H. Egan and, a few years later, she had two sons: Ian Thomas and Alexander James. In the drama series, Heartbeat (1988), Kate played Dr. Joanne Springsteen, the head of a medical clinic. However, in series such as: Murphy Brown (1988), Murder, She Wrote (1984), St. Elsewhere (1982) and Cheers (1982), she only had guest roles.In 1993, Kate separated from her husband, Robert H. Egan, with whom she had been married for 12 years. In 1995, the divorce became final, and she was on the verge of having to sell her house (and move into an apartment in Westwood) when something incredible happened. She had been called to resume a role in a television series after the original actress, Geneviève Bujold, left two days into filming. What she did not know then was that this role was going to become her most famous one. The role in question was Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager (1995). At the moment, she played Katharine Hepburn in the play "Tea at Five" on some stages in the United States.