About Katey Sagal
American actress, singer, and writer, known for her roles in Futurama, 8 Simple Rules, Married... with Children and Sons of Anarchy.
Katey was born in Hollywood, California to a show business family; she is the daughter of director Boris Sagal, best known for his work on 1960s television dramas, including The Twilight Zone.
Her mother, Sara Zwilling, was a producer. Sagal is the older sister of twin actresses Jean Sagal and Liz Sagal, best remembered as the Doublemint Twins of the early 1980s, and for their own short-lived sitcom of that era: Double Trouble. She is also the sister of actor Joe Sagal. Sagal and her siblings grew up in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, California.
Katey began her career working the Hollywood circuit. She appeared in several television films between 1971 and 1975, including a small role as a receptionist in the Columbo film Candidate for Crime, (directed by her father) and in 1973 working as a backing vocalist for various singers, including Bob Dylan, Gene Simmons, and Tanya Tucker. During this time she also was a member of the now-forgotten rock group The Group With No Name. She was plucked from relative obscurity by Bette Midler, who hired her for her 1979 tour as one of her back-up singers (The Harlettes).
Sagal returned to television in 1985 in the failed television series Mary starring Mary Tyler Moore. This led to her being cast in her best-known role, that of Peg Bundy on the very successful American sitcom Married... with Children (alongside Amanda Bearse and Christina Applegate). On the show, she portrayed the lower-class, unhappy, sex-craving wife of a shoe salesman. Her career focused almost entirely on this series for its ten-year run (with the exception of several television movies). Sagal briefly revisited her role of Peg in Futurama (below), when the sitcom was parodied in the episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two".
After the end of Married... with Children, several more television films followed for Sagal, and she was also a featured voice on the children's cartoon Recess.
In 1999, Matt Groening, who created The Simpsons, cast her as one-eyed mutant spaceship pilot Turanga Leela in his science-fiction cartoon comedy Futurama. The show developed a cult following, but was cancelled four years later. (The revival of Futurama was announced in 2006; Sagal has stated plans to return as Leela in the 2008 season.) Sagal also guest starred as Edna Hyde, Steven Hyde's mother in three episodes of That 70's Show: "Punk Chick" (1999), "Prom Night" (1999), and "The Career Day" (1999). She starred in the short-lived NBC sitcom Tucker in 2000.
Sagal was cast as the wife of John Ritter in the sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter in 2002. After Ritter's unexpected death in September 2003, Sagal was suddenly given the difficult task of having to carry most of the weight of the show (with a little help from new cast members David Spade and James Garner). Ritter completed only three episodes of the second season of 8 Simple Rules with Sagal introducing each episode. The show was cancelled in 2005 after its third season.
Sagal is also an accomplished songwriter. In 1976, while a member of The Group with No Name, she contributed to the album "Moon over Brooklyn". She also performed backing vocals on the solo album by KISS Bassist Gene Simmons. On April 19, 1994, she released her first solo album, Well.... Ten years later, on June 1,2004 she released her second album, Room.
In 2005, she made two guest appearances on Lost and one guest appearance on CBS's Ghost Whisperer. She currently hosts The Search for the Funniest Mom in America and has a recurring role as a guest star on Boston Legal.
Katey married Kurt Sutter (a writer, producer, and actor for The Shield) in a private ceremony on October 2, 2004 at their home in Los Feliz, California. Before that, she was married to Freddie Beckmeyer (1978–1981) and Jack White (1993–2000) with whom she has two children, Sarah Grace and Jackson James White.
