Katey Sagal
Katey Sagal is an actor, born 1954.
Peg Bundy ran for ten years and made Katey Sagal famous for a very particular kind of comic contempt. Married... with Children put her on air from 1987 to 1997 and brought three Golden Globe nominations in the musical or comedy category, though the award itself arrived two decades later for something else entirely. She is also a singer, and the voice is the instrument the rest of the career is built on.
It has gravel in it, and an unusual ability to land a joke at low volume. Peg needled Al from a horizontal position on the sofa; Turanga Leela, whom Sagal has voiced since Futurama began in 1999 and across four feature-length films, is a cartoon captain played with almost no cartoon in the reading; Gemma Teller Morrow on Sons of Anarchy from 2008 to 2014 is the one that proved the rest. Gemma is a matriarch who lies for a living and knows it, and Sagal took the part somewhere colder than the show's marketing suggested. It won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Drama in 2011.
She was also Cate Hennessy on 8 Simple Rules from 2002 to 2005, and has worked steadily in support since Sons of Anarchy ended: Eleanor Hale in Dead to Me, Louise in The Conners, the title role in Rebel, Dr Kureha in the live-action ONE PIECE. For an actress first sold to America as a punchline, that is an unusually durable second and third act.
Movies (18)
- Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)
- Bleed for This (2016)
- Futurama: Bender's Big Score (2007)
- Trust (2025)
- Dirty Dancing (2017)
- Futurama: Bender's Game (2008)
- Jack and the Beanstalk (2009)
- Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008)
- Torn Hearts (2022)
- Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder (2009)
- House Broken (2009)
- Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade (2003)
- The Good Mother (1988)
- Maid to Order (1987)
- I'm Reed Fish (2007)
- Smart House (1999)
- Futurama: The Lost Adventure (2008)
- Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street (2001)
TV (16)
- Futurama (1999)
- Sons of Anarchy (2008)
- Married... with Children (1987)
- ONE PIECE (2023)
- The Conners (2018)
- Recess (1997)
- 8 Simple Rules (2002)
- Eli Stone (2008)
- Dead to Me (2019)
- Grand Hotel (2019)
- Rebel (2021)
- The Geena Davis Show (2000)
- The Bastard Executioner (2015)
- A to Z (2014)
- Superior Donuts (2017)
- Space Cases (1996)
Where to start with Katey Sagal
Three entry points, one per decade, and they barely resemble each other.
If you want the performance that changed how people saw her, take Sons of Anarchy. Gemma is the engine of that show and Sagal plays her without asking to be liked, which is rarer than it sounds in a series that loves its own outlaws. If you want the comedy, Married... with Children is coarse, dated and still funny, and her timing is the most disciplined thing in it.
For the voice, Futurama is the obvious answer and holds up better than almost any animated comedy of its era, with Futurama: Bender's Big Score the best of the four films. 8 Simple Rules is the underrated one, a family sitcom she anchors from 2002 to 2005.
Recent work is scattered but Dead to Me gives her a genuinely nasty supporting turn, and ONE PIECE hands her Dr Kureha, which she plays with obvious pleasure.