Early life

Lee was born Michele Lee Dusick in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Sylvia Helen (née Silverstein) and Jack Dusick, a make-up artist. She is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, her ancestors being from Poland and Russia. At age 19, her television career began on the December 26, 1961 episode of the CBS-TV sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She attended Alexander Hamilton High School where she became popular with her class.

Career

Early years

When she was 18, after graduation from high school, she auditioned for the Broadway play, Vintage '60. She soon began appearing in musicals, becoming Broadway performer at the age of 19 in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying opposite Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee, a role she reprised in the film version. She also appeared in dramas such as the Los Angeles production of Jerry Herman's Parade and the Broadway productions of Bravo Giovanni and The Tale of the Allergist's Wife.

After she sang in the film version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, she became known for her roles in the films The Comic, opposite Dick Van Dyke, and The Love Bug, opposite Dean Jones. The latter becoming the third-highest grossing film of 1968 in the United States. 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", and also peaked at #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 with "L. David Sloane". 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 to spend time with her son.

In 1974, Lee starred in the pilot episode for proposed CBS sitcom The Michele Lee Show. She played Michele Burton, a clerk in a hotel newsstand, with support from Stephen Collins. However, 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.

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 American primetime dramas ever, lasting for a total of 14 seasons from 1979 - 1993. Due to her long-running tenure, Lee's alter ego is often credited as being the center of the program. Television personality Joan Rivers commented that Lee was, in theory, the "First Lady of Knots Landing" during her guest appearance on The Late Show, which Rivers hosted at the time. The characters of the serial often represented what was happening in society at the time. Lee acknowledged that, saying: "Karen wanted to be a Pollyanna and wasn't ashamed of that. Remember in our society, maybe people don't remember, but remember when we could go over to other people's houses and come in through an open back door? I remember when I was a little girl and my mother and father would have people over and they'd walk into an unlocked door in our house." Lee was the only performer to appear in all of the show's 344 episodes.

Although Lee was enjoying a successful career on television, her marriage to actor James Farentino was failing. Farentino and she 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. Lee won the Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Lead Actress (Primetime) three times, and was also nominated for an Emmy 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. Six years later, Lee directed her first of several episodes of the series. In 1991, Knots Landing reached a milestone with its 300th episode. During the same season, Lee filmed her favorite scene from the series, known as the "Pollyanna Speech" among fans. In this scene, for which Lee had much input, Karen reacts strongly against all of the social problems of 1990s society and explains how she does not want to be a Pollyanna and see the world through rose-colored glasses, but rather wanted the world to be rose-colored.

As Knots Landing moved into the 1990s, its popularity began to wane, although it had outlived all of its contemporaries. The big budget that the series once had was trimmed to the extent that, in the final season, the higher paid cast members were asked to appear in only 15 of the season's 19 episodes as the production company could not afford to pay them. However, Lee insisted on appearing in all 19 episodes that season, doing her extra four episodes for "union scale" pay.

Later career

After 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 miniseries 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 2000, she returned to the Broadway stage in The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and received a 2001 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. In 2004, she returned to feature films in the role of Ben Stiller's character'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 nonfiction special Knots Landing Reunion: Together Again, in which the stars reminisced about their time on the hit series. Also in 2005, she appeared alongside Tyne Daly, Leslie Uggams, Christine Baranski, and Karen Ziemba for the Kennedy Center Honor of Julie Harris. In 2010, Lee did voice work for an episode of the animated comedy series Family Guy. She returned to Broadway in 2015 to star as Madame Morrible in the musical Wicked.

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 1966, they were married. Their son, David Farentino, was born July 6, 1969. Lee and Farentino divorced in 1983. She married Fred Rappaport in 1987.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1961	The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis	Lila	Episode: "Crazylegs Gillis"
1967	The Red Skelton Show	Peaches Laverne	Episode: "A New York Stripper Is Not Always a Steak"
1967	How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying	Rosemary Pilkington
1968	The Love Bug	Carole Bennett
1969	Roberta	Stephanie
1969	The Comic	Mary Gibson
1971	Night Gallery	Joanna Lowell	Episode: "Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay/With Apologies to Mr. Hyde/The Flip Side of Satan"
1970-1972	Marcus Welby, M.D.	Katie	3 episodes
1972	Alias Smith and Jones	Georgette Sinclair	3 episodes
1972	Of Thee I Sing	Diana Devereaux
1971-1973	Love, American Style	Various	5 episodes
1974	Only with Married Men	Jill Garrett
1976	Dark Victory	Dolores Marsh
1978	Having Babies	Lucy	Episode: "Sterile Wife"
1978	Bud and Lou	Anne Costello
1978-1979	Fantasy Island	Nancy Weston / Carol DeAngelo	2 episodes
1979	Nutcracker Fantasy	Narrator	Voice
1977-1982	The Love Boat	Various	6 episodes
1985	A Letter to Three Wives	Rita Phipps
1989	Single Women Married Men	Susan Parmel
1990	The Fatal Image	Barbara Brennan
1991	My Son Johnny	Mary Anne
1992	Broadway Bound	Blanche
1992	When No One Would Listen	Jessica Cochran
1979-1993	Knots Landing	Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie	Series regular, 344 episodes
1995	Something Wilder	Joanna	Episode: "The Ex Files"
1995	Big Dreams and Broken Hearts: The Dottie West Story	Dottie West
1996	Color Me Perfect	Dina Blake
1997	Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac	Karen MacKenzie	TV Mini-Series
1998	Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story	Jacqueline Susann
1999	A Murder on Shadow Mountain	Barbara Traynor
2000	Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer	Cousin Mel	Voice
2003	Miss Match	Sandy	Episode: "Addicted to Love"
2004	Along Came Polly	Vivian Feffer
2004	Married to the Kellys	Maggie Wagner	Episode: "Kansas v. Tom's Parents"
2005	Will & Grace	Lucille	Episode: "Dance Cards & Greeting Cards"
2010	Family Guy	Estelle Harris	Episode: "Extra Large Medium"
2013	See Dad Run	Grandma Maggie	Episode: "See Dad See Through Grandma"
2013	How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)	Caroline	Episode: "How to Help the Needy"

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
1973	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Performance	Seesaw	Won
1974	Tony Award	Best Actress in a Musical		Nominated
1982	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series	Knots Landing	Nominated
1986	Soap Opera Digest Award	Favorite Super Couple on a Prime Time Serial		Won
		Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role on a Prime Time Serial		Nominated
1988		Favorite Super Couple: Prime Time		Won
		Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role: Prime Time		Won
1991		Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role: Prime Time		Won
1992		Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role: Prime Time		Won
1998	Hollywood Walk of Fame	Star on the Walk of Fame On 19 November 1998 at 6363 Hollywood Blvd.		Won
2001	Tony Award	Best Featured Actress in a Play	The Tale of the Allergist's Wife	Nominated
2009	TV Land Award	Anniversary Award	Knots Landing	Won

[ Source: Wikipedia ]