Kathryn Morris

Kathryn Morris is an American actress from Ohio. Her better known roles include her portrayals of the helicopter pilot Lieutenant Annalisa “Stinger” Lindstrom in the action-adventure series “Pensacola: Wings of Gold” (1997-2000), the cult leader Najara in the fantasy series “Xena: Warrior Princess” (from 1998 to 1999), the estranged wife Lara Anderton in the science fiction film “Minority Report” (2002), and the homicide detective Lillian “Lilly” Rush in the police procedural “Cold Case” (2003-2010). In “Cold Case”, her character was the protagonist.

Morris was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but raised in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Her parents were the Bible scholar Stanley Morris and the insurance agent Joyce Morris. From c. 1975 to c. 1986, Kathryn performed with members of her family as a singer in the gospel-singing group “The Morris Code”. The group regularly performed in the so-called Bible Belt of the Southern United States.

Morris studied theatre in high school. She received her tertiary education at the Northeastern Christian Junior College and the Temple University, both located in Philadelphia. Her first acting gig was reportedly a role in a Japanese music video. Morris made her film debut in the television film “Long Road Home” (1991). During the early 1990s, she frequently appeared in various television films. Among them was the crime drama “A Friend to Die For” (1994), based on the real-life murder of high school girl Kirsten Costas by a female classmate who was obsessed with Costas.

In the second half of the 1990s, Morris had guest star roles in several then-popular television series, such as “Murder, She Wrote”, “Silk Stalkings” , and “Poltergeist: The Legacy””. Her first role as a main cast member in a television series was in “Pensacola: Wings of Gold” . Among her earliest prominent film roles was that of FBI agent Paige Willomina in the political drama “The Contender” (2000). The director Steven Spielberg cast Morris in two of his films, after first noticing her in “The Contender” .

In 2013, Morris gave birth to twin sons at the age of 44. In 2016, both of her sons were diagnosed with autism. In subsequent years, Morris became involved with autism-related advocacy organizations. In 2021, Morris founded the initiative “The Savants” in an attempt (in her words) “to mainstream autism”. She had devoted much of her personal life to parenting and activism, though she never retired from acting.