Kathryn Walker is an American theater, television, and film actress.
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Biography
Kathryn Walker was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wells College in Aurora, New York, and was a Fulbright Scholar in music and drama.
Walker's relationship with writer Douglas Kenney lasted until his death in 1980 at age 33. She was married to singer James Taylor from 1985 to 1996.
Stage and film career
Walker's career began on the off-Broadway New York stage with her performance in Slag in 1971. On Broadway she appeared in The Good Doctor (1974), A Touch of the Poet (1977), Private Lives (1983), and Wild Honey (1986), among others. She has also been a sporadic presence on daytime drama, including Search for Tomorrow and Another World, and she received an Emmy award for her outstanding performance as First Lady Abigail Adams in PBS's 13-part epic miniseries The Adams Chronicles (1976). On film, she has co-starred or played secondary femme roles in Blade (1973), Slap Shot (1977), Girlfriends (1978), and Rich Kids (1979), and she also played John Belushi's wife in the oddball dark comedy Neighbors (1981). Walker also narrated two PBS reality series, Frontier House (2002) and Colonial House (2004), based on the format of experiential history.
She co-founded The Athens Street Company with William Alfred. In 1997, she was Rothschild Artist in Residence at Radcliffe College. Her six-part documentary series The Millennium Journal was shown on the PBS cable channel Metro Arts.
She has directed many of the 92nd Street Y's classical theater productions, among them Euripides' Hekabe (2004); Sophocles' Elektra (2002); Euripides' Medea (2001); The Bacchae of Euripides (2000); and her own adaptation of Fagles' The Iliad (2006). She lives in both New York City and Tesuque, New Mexico.
Literary career
In 2008, her novel, A Stopover in Venice was published.
In popular culture
Walker was portrayed in the film Burton & Taylor by Sarah Hadland, and by Emmy Rossum in the film A Futile and Stupid Gesture.
Filmography
Broadway
The Good Doctor (1973–1974)
Mourning Pictures (1974)
Kid Champion (1975) as Jill McDill
A Touch of the Poet (1977–1978) as Sara Melody
Private Lives (1983) as Amanda Prynne and, in other shows, as Sybil Chase
Wild Honey (1986–1987) as Anna Petrovna
