Could you tell us about your charity?
The charity I'm playing for is the Scleroderma Research Foundation, and it was started by a friend of mine, Sharon Monsky, who had scleroderma, and I've been involved for almost 20 years.
What's more important: winning or having fun?
It's always more important for me to have fun. My mantra today is "You win some, you lose some." [Laughs]
How might your experience as an actor give you an edge?
Well, I sup--I would hope that as an actor I would be better in the categories that include, y'know, movies, and art and that kind of stuff, but I just suck when it comes to sports and science. And Bible!--I'm really not good at Bible.
Did you prepare differently for this appearance than the last time?
I didn't think--I--I don't remember preparing at all the last time, and this time I did get Ken Jennings's trivia book, which actually was just a lot of fun, and--and the trivia was so obscure that I'm sure it will never be up there, so I don't know that really helped me at all. |
"She won two Emmys for her work on China Beach. This fall marks her third season playing Katherine Mayfair on Desperate Housewives. Please welcome actress..."
DANA DELANY
Playing on behalf of Scleroderma Research Foundation
Dana Delany currently appears as Katherine Mayfair on "Desperate Housewives." She made her mark as Army nurse Colleen McMurphy on ABC-TV's critically acclaimed series "China Beach," for which she received two Emmy Awards and four nominations for Best Dramatic Actress.
Following her graduation from Wesleyan University, Dana, a Stamford, Connecticut native, went to New York where she honed her skills in daytime television and theatre. She starred on Broadway in "A Life" and received critical acclaim in a number of off-Broadway productions including Nicholas Kazan's "Blood Moon" which led to her arrival in Los Angeles for the west coast production of the controversial drama. Opting to stay in Los Angeles after the run of the play, Dana was soon cast in many popular television shows including "Moonlighting," and "Magnum, P.I."
Dana has appeared in numerous films including "Tombstone," "Housesitter," "Fly Away Home," "Exit to Eden," "Light Sleeper," "Moon Over Parador," "Masquerade," "Patty Hearst," "Where the River Runs Black," and "Almost You." In 2008, she will be seen in the independent films, "Route 30", "Multiple Sarcasms" and "Camp Hope."
Television mini-series include "Shake, Rattle & Roll," "True Women," and "Wild Palms." Some of the movies for television in which Dana has starred include "Resurrection" and "The Patron Saint of Liars," both directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, "For Hope," in which she played a woman suffering from Scleroderma, directed by Bob Saget, Lifetime's "Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story," Showtime's "Sirens," "Rescuers: Stories of Courage," and "Conviction" with Omar Epps, and "The Right Temptation" for HBO. Dana produced and starred in the ABC telefilm "Final Jeopardy" based on New York sex-crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein's novel.
More recent television series credits include CBS's "Presidio Med," Fox's "Pasadena," and NBC's "Kidnapped" opposite Timothy Hutton. Episodic work includes "Family Law," for which she received an Emmy Award nomination for outstanding guest actress in a drama series.
Dana's theatre credits include "Translations," "Much Ado About Nothing," opposite Billy Campbell at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and the Pulitzer prize-winning play "Dinner With Friends," alternating roles in New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Last year she appeared in Neil Labute's "Things We Said Today" at the EST marathon in New York.
Since 1996 Dana has provided voice-over work as Lois Lane on the WB's animated series "Superman," "The Batman/Superman Adventures," "Justice League," and most recently "The Batman."
Since the mid-1990's, Delany has served on the board of the Scleroderma Research Foundation. |
