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Small stature, big attitude describes the chopper pilot. She's warm and likeable, but also the first in line for adventure and danger. Choosing college over marriage and taking a part-time job at a local heliport turned her attention to the marines. While clearly up to Corps standards and wild about her assignment, Annalisa always wonders whether her qualifications - or her gender - got her where she is.
Raised in the Minneapolis area as the third child of a blue collar family, she has two older brothers who are obviously favored by both parents, but especially, to Annalisa's disappointment, by their father. When it came time for Annalisa to get married, she went to college instead. She worked part time at a regional heliport. It was there that she got her first exposure to the whirly birds and her first encouragement to go military and serve her country and play hero. For better or worse, however, she joined up and the timing was such that she became a Marine at precisely that time when the Marines were looking to widen their appeal and integrate the Force across all gender lines. She was both pleased and uneasy about the circumstances and timing of her enlistment, wary lest she was perceived as getting in on a preferential pass. She needed to be in a post where her skills were visible and demonstrably up to Corps standards. After years in the Minnesota freezer, Annalisa responded to the southern climate like a frog takes to lily pads. |
Actor's History
Kathryn Morris has portrayed a number of intense, critically-praised characters in movies and on television but - like First Lieutenant Annalisa Lindstrom, the determined helicopter gunship pilot she plays in Pensacola: Wings of Gold - she wanted more.
Morris found that opportunity in Annalisa, one of the four talented, energetic, determined young people hand-picked for their unique skills and put under the command of a tough Marine Lieutenant Colonel (James Brolin), whose assignment is to turn them into an elite Marine multi-skill task force. Annalisa is the team's chopper pilot, first in line for adventure and danger. "Annalisa is a strong woman who thrives on the kind of work that usually only men get to do, and does it with confidence in her skill and herself," Morris says.
"I've had my share of juicy guest-starring roles but when it came to a great lead role for women my age, I thought it would be more available in film than in television," she acknowledges. "Annalisa was a pleasant surprise - she's strong enough to do the work a man would do, but she can still be a woman. So many women's roles are ornamental, but this is unquestionably full-on get down and dirty." To guarantee authenticity, Morris spent time training at Camp Pendleton: there, she learned the principles of flying a UH-1H "Huey" gunship helicopter from real-life pilots; was instructed on handling military equipment, including an M-16 rifle, and talked with women on the base about the special challenges they face on the job.
Going 100 percent is an approach that Morris has applied to her own career. Born into a family of singers, who performed in concert across the U.S., she began singing professionally when she was five and recorded an album with them. With her family, she lived in Brooklyn, New York; Dallas, Texas; Burlington, Massachusetts, and Windsor Locks, Connecticut (a suburb of Hartford). Morris later traveled around the country with an a capella troupe.
Her interest in acting was ignited when, at 13, she began appearing in school musicals; at 16, she attended Wesleyan University's Center for Creative Youth. But Morris was considering a career in journalism when she enrolled in Philadelphia's Temple University School of Communications. She even served an internship in the news department at local station WCAU-TV. But acting studies and regional theatre around Philadelphia drew her back to her earlier interest. With $60 in her pocket and her mind made up, Morris took a Greyhound Bus to California. While she worked a variety of part-time jobs, including work in a chocolate factory and the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, she also landed her first role within a week: in Long Road Home, an Emmy-winning telefilm starring Mark Harmon.
She was off and running. In addition to a number of prominent regional stage productions, Morris has appeared in a number of high-profile television projects, including the CBS mini-series Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All, the telefilms Rise & Walk: The Dennis Byrd Story and A Friend to Die For and the series Relativity, Maloney, Ink, Sweet Justice and Firefighters. Her favorite roles among her upcoming feature film work include the portrayal of a heroin addict in the independent film Paper Dragons, a possible killer in Screenplay and a woman disappointed by Jack Nicholson in the soon-to-be-released James L. Brooks production Old Friends.
In her free time, Morris enjoys tackling home improvement projects around the fixer-upper in which she lives in Los Angeles. "I own a lot of power tools and pretend I'm Bob Vila," she admits. "I pretend I know how to use them." Knowing Morris, if she doesn't already . . . she'll figure out how soon enough.
Video Interview with actor, Kathryn Morris
Question Video of answer When's your birthday? Answer Favorite food? Answer What is your favorite sport? Answer Hobbies? Answer How did you get started acting? Answer Why did you start acting? Answer How long have you been acting? Answer How do you like to unwind/relax? Answer Favorite vacation / get-away spot? Answer What was your first job? Answer Favorite author? Answer Where did you grow up? Answer What was it like growing up in Connecticut? Answer If you could take only three things to a desert island, what would they be? Answer What's your favorite kind of music? Answer If you weren't an actor, how would you earn a living? Answer
