Catherine ( Lisa ) Bell

Catherine Lisa Bell Biography

Catherine Lisa Bell (born August 14, 1968 in London) is a British-born American actress who was the co-star of the hit television show JAG from 1997 to 2005.

Bell is the daughter of a Scottish father and Iranian mother. Her parents divorced, and then she and her mother moved to Los Angeles, California when she was three years old. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of 12. She acted in various television advertisements as a child. She attended the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) with an interest in becoming a either a biomedical engineer or a physician but dropped out to become a full-time model. One of her first modeling jobs was an extended assignment in Japan.

Bell as Lt. Col. Sarah McKenzie, USMC JAG on JAG, CBS 1995-2005Her first appearance in a film was as a body double for Isabella Rossellini in Death Becomes Her (1992). In 2003, Bell played a supporting role in the comedy Bruce Almighty, which starred Jim Carrey. From 1997 to 2005, she played U.S. Marine Corps Major Sarah MacKenzie on the television series JAG, as a practicing attorney in the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps of legal experts.

Catherine is fluent in Farsi (Persian) and English. Catherine married Mr. Adam Beason on 8 May 1994. They have produced a daughter, Gemma Beason, who was born on 16 April 2003. Catherine is a survivor of thyroid cancer. She had to have her thyroid gland removed from her neck in her 20s. She has a small surgical scar on her neck.

On September 14, 2006, Reuters/Hollywood Reporter announced that Catherine Bell had joined the cast of Lifetime's ensemble drama pilot "Army Wives". In the projected series, Sally Pressman stars as a sassy woman from the wrong side of the tracks who marries a soldier, moves her kids to a military base and becomes friends with a diverse group of Army wives, three of them played by Catherine Bell, Kim Delaney, and Brigid Brannagh. In a departure from the dedicated, with-it, Major Sarah Mackenzie she portrayed on CBS' "JAG," on "Army Wives" Catherine will play the wife of a US Army major, a devoted homemaker who is enduring physical abuse at the hands of her teenage son.

Catherine has also acted in the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries, The Triangle, presented in December 2005, where she played the role of an ocean engineer. In 2006, she was nominated in Saturn Award of Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for Best Supporting Actress on Television (The Triangle)