Catherine Bell Biography And Filmography:

Catherine Bell is the daughter of a Scottish father and Iranian mother. Her parents divorced and she and her mother relocated to Los Angeles, California when she was four years old. She became a citizen of the United States at age thirteen. Bell worked in various television commercials as a young girl. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with an interest in biomedical engineering and becoming a Doctor, but dropped out to start a modeling career. 

Bell's first movie roll was as a body double for Isabella Rossellini in "Death Becomes Her" in 1992 where she worked alongside super star talent like Meryl Streep and Bruce Willis. In 2003, she was hired for a supporting role in the comedy film "Bruce Almighty", which starred Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Aniston. Through early 2005, she also portrayed Marine Lt. Colonel Sarah McKenzie on the television series and military lawyer show "JAG".

Bell is fluent in Farsi  and English and  married Adam Beason in 1994 and the couple have a daughter, Gemma, who was born in 2003. The actress is a survivor of thyroid cancer and had to have her thyroid removed when she was twenty. She has a surgical scar on her neck that is covered during productions.

Some of Bell's early films include "Mother of the Bride" (1993 TV), "Men of War" (1994) with Dolph Lundgren, "Alien Nation: Body and Soul" (1995 TV), "Crash Drive" (1997), about the crew of the nuclear submarine USS Ulysses who rescues supposed victims of a boat disaster, but the victims.  Catherine rounded out her resume with "Cab to Canada" (1998 TV) with Maureen O'Hara, a true story about a Pasadena cab driver who picks up what he believes is a routine customer. The actress then appeared in the sci-fi thriller "The Time Shifters" (1999) with Martin Sheen. 

In September 2006 it was announced that Catherine Bell had been hired for the cast of Lifetime's ensemble drama pilot "Army Wives". In the show, Sally Pressman stars as a playful woman from the wrong part of town who marries a soldier, relocates her children to a military base and becomes friends with a assorted group of Army wives, played by Bell, Kim Delaney and Brigid Brannagh.

In a departure from the role of Lt. Col. Sarah Mackenzie she played on "JAG," on "Army Wives" she played the wife of a Major, a dedicated homemaker who is suffering from physical and mental abuse at the hands of her teenage son. Bell used her exposure and the show's recognition, especially with military supporters and wives, to expand her career into an assortment of magazine covers and roles in television movies, eventually grabbing her leading role as the focus of Jim Carrey's desire in the comedy "Bruce Almighty" (2003) with Jennifer Aniston, about a guy who complains about God too often who is given almighty powers to teach him how difficult it is to run the world. 

Bell then appeared in the television mini series "The Triangle" (2005) where a group of people haunted by their experiences within the Bermuda Triangle band together to confront its truths. She then was cast in another made for television movie "Still Small Voices" (2006), about a 911 operator who receives a ghostly call from a child murdered thirty years before and becomes obsessed with unraveling the crime. What she discovers shatters her. Bell then appeared in the family television movie "The Good Wives" (2008) about a mysterious woman who comes in to town and inhabits the local haunted mansion, making everyone wonder if she's a witch or "The Grey Lady". 

Catherine Bell has also had numerous guest appearances on TV shows including "Vanishing Son", "Friends", "The Naked Truth", "Hot Line", "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" with Kevin Sorbo, "Sin City Spectacular", "Threshold" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit".

The actress has been associated with Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard since 1990 and has achieved the position the Church of Scientology calls "The State Of Clear". She has been involved with Scientology for quite some time, as have some of her fellow celebrity friends Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. 

Bell has supported Scientology's Hollywood Education and Literacy Project. In December 2005, she assisted in the promotion the grand opening of Scientology's controversial "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death", which tells of a possible conspiracy theory linking Adolf Hitler to the psychiatric profession.

Bell admits that her big breakthrough and favorite project to date was her dream TV series role playing Denise Sherwood in an initial 84 episodes of the hit show “Army Wives” (2007-2012) about four women and one man who share the common bond of loving someone in the U.S. Army. The show was a hit partly due to the United States involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq wars at the time and the show seemed to strike a chord with viewers.

In 2012 Bell stuck with the military theme and took the starring role of Kathy Prager in the horror thriller “Desert Storm” (2012) about a team of Black Ops mercenaries who go on a routine recon mission during the Iraq war and encounter a research lab that contains something they could never have anticipated.