Diana Muldaur (born August 19, 1938) is an American film and television actress.[2] Muldaur's television roles include Rosalind Shays on L.A. Law and Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She appeared in two episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series in the late 1960s, playing different roles (Drs. Miranda Jones and Ann Mulhall). She has been nominated for an Emmy twice, as a supporting actress on L.A. Law in 1990 and 1991.[3]
In 1965, Muldaur landed the role of Ann Wicker in the CBS daytime soap opera The Secret Storm. She then did a five-episode arc as Jeannie Orloff in the final season of Richard Chamberlain's NBC medical drama Dr. Kildare.
Collaborations between Muldaur and Burt Reynolds began when Muldaur appeared in an episode of Hawk (1966), a weekly procedural with Reynolds in the title role. Subsequently, they guest-starred in a third-season episode of The F.B.I. (1968), and Muldaur guest-starred in an episode of Reynolds' series Dan August (1970).
In 1968, she appeared in the original Star Trek episodes "Return to Tomorrow" as Science Officer Dr. Ann Mulhall, and in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" as Dr. Miranda Jones. During this time, a friendship with creator Gene Roddenberry formed that led to him casting Muldaur as Marg in the television film Planet Earth (1974) with John Saxon. Later, she appeared as Dr. Katherine Pulaski in 20 episodes of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988–1989).
Muldaur's first major role was as Belle in the ABC primetime serial Harold Robbins' The Survivors (1970). The soap, intended as a comeback vehicle for Hollywood star Lana Turner, was cancelled early into the 1970 television season after 15 episodes.
In 1967, Muldaur guest-starred on Mannix episode "Coffin for a Clown". In 1971, she appeared as Rachel Bonham in The Men From Shiloh (rebranded name for the TV Western The Virginian) in the episode titled "The Politician". Muldaur guest-starred in a first-season episode of Alias Smith and Jones, "The Great Shell Game" in 1971. In the second season of Kung Fu in 1973, opposite David Carradine, she guest-starred in the episode "The Elixir" playing a traveling-show woman who yearned for freedom from men—topical at the time—and starred in the pilot episode of Charlie's Angels. In a 1972 Hawaii Five-O episode, she was a guest star along with Ricardo Montalbán.
She had a recurring role as Judge Eleanor Hooper on The Tony Randall Show during the show's 1976–1978 run, and was a guest star in season two of Fantasy Island. Muldaur guest-starred on The Incredible Hulk, playing the part of Helen Banner, David Banner's sister, in the season-three episode "Homecoming" in November 1979. In 1981, she played a nun in the fifth-season episode "Sanctuary".
Muldaur had a recurring role on the seven-season Dennis Weaver mystery anthology McCloud as Chris Coughlin, McCloud's love interest. Her character was introduced in the pilot episode in 1970, and made her last of 16 appearances in April 1977. She reprised her role as Chris for the 1989 reunion movie The Return of Sam McCloud.
Muldaur was cast as conservationist Joy Adamson in the television drama Born Free about Elsa the Lioness. Filming for the ambitious project, which co-starred Gary Collins, took place in Kenya, and the NBC series, which debuted in the fall of 1974, lasted one season. Guest stars on Born Free included several of Muldaur's future co-stars, including Alex Cord (Chosen Survivors) and Susan Dey (L.A. Law).
In 1979, Muldaur starred with David Huddleston in the short-lived NBC sitcom Hizzonner, which lasted just seven episodes and co-starred Kathy Cronkite, daughter of news presenter Walter Cronkite. She played the mayor's secretary, Ginny.
First an Emmy-winning miniseries and then a weekly drama, A Year in the Life was a critical success for NBC, with a cast including Richard Kiley and Sarah Jessica Parker. As Dr. Alice Foley, Muldaur praised the show as an example of how television was becoming more realistic about women.[7]
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Muldaur is known for playing "dignified, sophisticated characters".[9] Gene Roddenberry was already familiar with Muldaur from her second-season appearance in the Star Trek episode, "Return to Tomorrow", and later in a third-season appearance in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?". He subsequently cast her in his 1973 TV movie Planet Earth. Consequently, for the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roddenberry chose her specifically to replace the outgoing Gates McFadden (who was let go at the insistence of the show's first-season producer Maurice Hurley).[10] Muldaur was cast to play the role of Dr. Pulaski, the new chief medical officer. "We needed someone with a little more of an edge," Rick Berman explained of the choice. "Kate's a strong, confident woman with an edge who can hold her own with Captain Picard. Their relationship is not all that unlike the one between Kirk and McCoy ... although from the onset we had no intention of trying to duplicate the original team."[11]
Muldaur said after her casting
I hadn't kept in touch with Gene over the years. I'd only done a pilot of his, Planet Earth, in 1974, so this call was totally out of the blue. I love being back in Star Trek. It's a challenge, but a healthy challenge. I find so much TV depressing—even the sitcoms. The chances of shows working and being funny or meaningful are very slim, but this show is very exciting. It has such an uplifting view of humanity in the 24th century. They want the crafty old doctor, so basically I'm a woman Dr. McCoy.[4]
Of Pulaski's willingness to stand up to the captain, Muldaur said
We've been in a fairly stormy relationship due to two very strong personalities, but we end up admiring each other. I'm also giving Brent Spiner (as the android, Data) a very hard time, treating him as a total machine, because that's how I see him, a machine that I can't treat and I don't deal with. But I'm also beginning to see the wonderful android that he is.[4]
Some television critics praised Muldaur's performance, with one noting her "wry, no-nonsense warmth that plays nicely off of some of the icier regulars".[12] The addition of Muldaur, along with Whoopi Goldberg, also served to redress the absence of women from the principal cast, as the departure of McFadden and Denise Crosby had left only Marina Sirtis, a rapid attrition of women that recalled the imbalance of the original Star Trek series.[9]
Ultimately, Muldaur found working on the syndicated show an "unhappy" experience, saying, "The imagination and joy wasn't there".[13] "Everybody was out for themselves. I don't think they were happy to have me there."[6] "It wasn't what I hoped it would be. I thought it would be wonderfully inventive and wonderfully creative, and I found it was not any of those things, but it did give me Trekkies. I love Trekkies. I find them very dear."[5]
The character also proved unpopular with some fans, who among other things found her treatment of the lovable android Data to be mean-spirited.[14] Muldaur left the series after a season. Show representatives denied that she had been fired, saying, "Technically, she's just not returning", while other sources said that her option had not been renewed.[15] Roddenberry described Muldaur as "a most talented actress" and said that the decision "to let her go was made solely because the hoped-for chemistry between her and the rest of the starship cast did not develop."[15][16][17] Berman added, "The thought of bringing Gates back was a good idea to us. The feeling was that we had perhaps made a mistake, and the best way to remedy it was to bring her back."[18] The "revolving door" and the limited opportunities for female crew led critics to suggest that the mostly male series still had a problem featuring women.[19][20][21]
L.A. Law
Muldaur subsequently earned two Emmy nominations for her role as lawyer Rosalind Shays on L.A. Law. Of Roz's creation, by prolific television writer David E. Kelley, Muldaur said:
We didn't think of her as an evil wench at the time. I don't think they knew, and I don't think I knew, what she was going to evolve into. Obviously, they wanted her to stir things up in the office. I don't think they quite understood how she was going to stir things up in America ... The hardest part is having to gear up to play her because some of the things she does are so horrifying. I just say, "Oh, no, they can't have her doing that." If it were a man doing the same thing, no one would blink. In fact, it wouldn't even be good copy. It goes on every day. It's that a woman is doing... things a man has done forever and ever.[5]
In one episode of the Stephen Bochco drama, Jill Eikenberry's character Ann Kelsey tells Shays: "If you were a man, you'd be applauded for your achievements."[5] Muldaur insisted her character "was just too strong for a lot of men".[6]
Muldaur described the L.A. Law actors as "the closest family",[6] and said she was "thrilled" to play a villain like Shays after portraying "everybody's mistress for 20 years",[13] and expressed fascination with the public reception for Shays:
Not my kind of lady at all. I often read a script and am just horrified. I can't believe they'd be having me do these things. I find very little to like about her. But I'm shocked by the reaction of people. They say, "Yea! Rosalind!" A lot of women come up to me and say, "I wish I could have said something like that when so-and-so said such-and-such to me." I think, "What a terrible thing to want to do," but they mean it. I don't think anybody would have really noticed if it had been a man. They would have said, "He's a pain in the neck," or something, but they wouldn't have doubted his word for a second. I'm doing some things now that horrify me, but if Leland had done the same things, nobody would be reacting the way they are now.[13]
The surprise scene where Roz and Leland are seen in bed together was ranked as the 38th-greatest moment in television in an issue of EGG magazine. Equally spectacular was Roz's fatal exit from the show, falling down an elevator shaft.[19][22] Muldaur joked: "I was as shocked as everybody else. I thought maybe I had asked for too much money!"[6]
Jill Eikenberry, who played Ann Kelsey on L.A. Law, said on E! True Hollywood Story that the whole L.A. Law cast loved the dynamic between Muldaur and Richard Dysart, and that they were all very sad to see Muldaur leave the show.
In an attempt to capitalize on Burt Reynolds' international superstardom, Muldaur's performance in the pilot episode of the Reynolds-Norman Fell crime series, Dan August (1970–1971) was edited together with a subsequent episode and repackaged as a 1980 ABC Movie of the Week titled Dan August: The Jealousy Factor.
Muldaur is a 1960 graduate of Sweet Briar College, a small, privatewomen'sliberal arts college in central Virginia. She is the older sister of singer-songwriter Geoff Muldaur, who is the former husband of singer Maria Muldaur. She is also the aunt of singer-songwriter Jenni Muldaur and singer-songwriter Clare Muldaur-Manchon. She lived in Los Angeles from 1970 to 1991.[4] Muldaur was married to actor James Vickery, her co-star on The Secret Storm, until his death from cancer in 1979.[6] She then married writer and producer Robert Dozier (son of producer William Dozier), who died of prostate cancer in 2012.[23] Muldaur is a former Airedale Terrier breeder and owner.[24] At one point, Muldaur contemplated a face lift, noting in 2000 at the age of 61, "You don't see many people my age on television", but eventually decided against it, remarking, "Somebody has to look the right age".[6] Her stated ambition is "to play all the great women's roles... I'd love to play Lady Macbeth."[6]
15 episodes: "Portrait of a Dead Girl", "Who Says You Can't Make Friends in New York City?", "Horse Stealing on Fifth Avenue", "The Disposal Man", "A Little Plot at Tranquil Valley", "Give My Regrets to Broadway", "The New Mexican Connection", "The Park Avenue Rustlers", "The Million Dollar Round Up", "Return to the Alamo", "Fire!", "Three Guns for New York", "'Twas the Fight Before Christmas...", "London Bridges", "McCloud Meets Dracula"
7 episodes: "Daughter on 10th Avenue", "Mizzonner", "Nails Gets Kidnapped", "Tea and Synthesizers", "The Book Story", "Mr. Perfect", "The Election Story"
7 episodes: "Don't I Know You from Somewhere?", "What Do You Think Love Is?", "What Do People Do All Day?", "Goodbye to All That", "The Go-Between", "The Politics of Being", "Love Mother"
24 episodes: "One Rat, One Ranger", "Lie Down and Deliver", "The Good Human Bar", "Noah's Bark", "The Pay's Lousy, But the Tips Are Great", "True Brit", "On Your Honour", "Whatever Happened to Hannah?", "Ex-Wives and Videotape", "Blood, Sweat and Fears", "Bound for Glory", "Justice Swerved", "Watts a Matter?", "Bang...Zoom...Zap", "Forgive Me Father, for I Have Sued", "Outward Bound", "The Bitch Is Back", "Happy Trails", "Lie Harder", "God Rest Ye Murray Gentleman", "Pump It Up", "He's a Crowd", "The Beverly Hills Hangers", "Good to the Last Drop"
^ abcdeWestbrook, Bruce (November 25, 1988). "'Trek' Launches New Season. Veteran Actress to Have Dr. McCoylike Role Aboard Enterprise". Houston Chronicle. p. 1.
^ abcdLundin, Diana E. (October 18, 1990). "Muldaur Lays Down the (L.A.) Law". Los Angeles Daily News. p. L25.
^ abcdefghMiller, Samantha; Stoynoff, Natasha (February 7, 2000). "Legend of the Fall". People. Vol. 53, no. 5. p. 93. Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Retrieved March 24, 2009.
^ abHanauer, Joan (April 12, 1988). "TV's 'Year' Advances Feminism for Actress". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 44.
^"'Star Trek' co-star steamed over attacks on Shatner Series". St. Petersburg Times. June 19, 1989. p. 3D.
^Westbrook, Bruce (June 23, 1990). "Going where no 'Trek' has gone before. Cliffhanger ends series' third season". Houston Chronicle. p. 1.
^ abSokolsky, Bob (September 6, 1998). "The revolving door: TV actors work in a mercurial medium, which is why it can be difficult to keep track of who's coming and going". The Press-Enterprise. p. F18.
^Westbrook, Bruce (September 30, 1989). "Star Trek. Television's Enterprise lacks boldness as its third season begins". Houston Chronicle. p. 1.
^Owen, Rob (May 21, 1994). "Boldly going, gone: Last episode of 'Trek'". Richmond Times-Dispatch.
^Grahnke, Lon (August 14, 1996). "Feminist heroes show new power". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 49.
^"Finding Hannah". miamijewishfilmfestival.org. Miami Jewish Film Festival. Archived from the original on January 27, 2023. Retrieved December 22, 2024.
