Michele Lee

Michele Lee born June 24, 1942 is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing. She also co-starred with Dean Jones in the 1968 Disney film, The Love Bug.

Early life

Lee was born Michelle Lee Dusick in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Sylvia Helen (née Silverstein) and Jack Dusick, a make-up artist. She is of Russian and Polish descent. Lee began her career on television in an episode of the late 1950s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She attended Alexander Hamilton High School where she became popular with her class. She in turn also attended the same high school as did Joel Siegel, Al Michaels and Michelle Phillips (who would later co-star with her in Knots Landing) did. When she was 18, after graduation from high school, she auditioned for the Broadway play Vintage '60. She soon began appearing in musicals, becoming a star on Broadway at the age of 19 in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in the role of "Rosemary", opposite Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee, a role she reprised in the film version. 

Film and TV work

After she sang and starred in the film version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, she became known for her roles in the films The Comic and The Love Bug, the latter becoming the biggest blockbuster movie of 1969. That same year, she starred in a special television production of the Jerome Kern–Otto Harbach musical, Roberta, in which she sang "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". After the birth of her son, she worked infrequently until accepting a role on Broadway in Seesaw, which netted her a Tony Award nomination in 1974. After her mother's death, she stopped working, wanting to spend time with her only son.

In 1974, Lee starred in the pilot episode for proposed CBS sitcom The Michele Lee Show. She would play Michele Burton, a clerk in a hotel newsstand, with support from Stephen Collins. Only the pilot episode was aired and the series did not proceed.

Lee became a busy guest actor in the 1970s, appearing in Marcus Welby, M.D., Alias Smith and Jones, Night Gallery, Love, American Style, Fantasy Island and The Love Boat.

Television work

Knots Landing

In 1979, Lee accepted the role of Karen Fairgate on Knots Landing, a spin-off of the immensely popular Dallas. Though slow to start, the series eventually became a ratings hit and became one of the longest running primetime dramas ever, lasting for a total of 14 seasons from 1979 - 1993. Lee was the only performer to appear in all of the show's 344 episodes, which was a record for an actress playing the same character on US primetime television — only recently surpassed by S. Epatha Merkerson on NBC's Law & Order as of 2008.

Although Lee was enjoying great success, her marriage to actor James Farentino was failing. She and Farentino separated around the same time Lee's onscreen husband, Don Murray, left the show. Lee thus played a single mother on Knots Landing at the same time she was becoming one in real life. Lee revealed that when her character took off her wedding ring in a 1982 episode, she was taking off her real wedding band.

During the fall of 1982, her character met M. Patrick "Mack" MacKenzie (Kevin Dobson), who became her screen husband the following year. They would continue working together until the end of the series. As one of the series' leads, Lee became very popular with fans, winning the Soap Opera Digest Award for Lead Actress five times, and being nominated for an Emmy Award in 1982 for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series". In 1983, the writers/producers of Knots Landing urged her to do a storyline based on prescription drug dependency which became one of her most prominent storylines. 

Other appearances

Since Knots Landing ended in 1993, Lee has appeared in many made-for-TV movies, including a biopic of late country star Dottie West ( Big Dreams and Broken Hearts: The Dottie West Story) and she became the first woman to star in, direct, and produce a TV movie for Lifetime, Color Me Perfect in 1996. She also starred in the reunion mini-series Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac in 1997, and portrayed Hollywood novelist Jacqueline Susann in the television biopic Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story in 1998. In 2004, she returned to feature films in the role of Ben Stiller's mother in Along Came Polly. She guest-starred alongside Chita Rivera in a February 2005 episode of Will & Grace. Also in 2005, she reunited with her Knots Landing co-stars for the special Knots Landing: Together Again, in which the stars reminisced about their time on the hit series. She also appeared alongside Tyne Daly, Leslie Uggams, Christine Baranski and Karen Ziemba for the Kennedy Center Honor of Julie Harris (2005)

Personal life

In 1963, Lee met actor James Farentino on the set of the play, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and in 1964 they were married. Their son, David Farentino, was born July 6, 1969. Lee and Farentino divorced in 1983. She married Fred Rappaport in 1987.

Awards

Emmy Awards:

(Nominated) (1982) Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Knots Landing

Tony Awards:

(Nominated) (1974) Best Actress: Musical for Seesaw

(Nominated) (2001) Best Actress (Featured Role: Play) for The Tale of the Allergists Wife

Soap Opera Digest Awards:

(Won) (1986) Outstanding Actress on a Primetime Serial for Knots Landing

(Won) (1986) Favorite Supercouple on a Primetime Serial: Shared with Kevin Dobson for Knots Landing

(Won) (1988) Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role: Primetime for Knots Landing

(Won) (1988) Favorite Supercouple: Primetime Shared with Kevin Dobson for Knots Landing

(Won) (1991) Outstanding Lead Actress: Primetime for Knots Landing

(Won) (1992) Outstanding Actress: Primetime for Knots Landing

She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on November 19, 1998 located at 6363 Hollywood Blvd.