Mary McDonnell

Born: 28 April 1952
Where: Pennsylvania, U.S.A

McDonnell made her feature debut in Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves in 1990 having been a major star on the East Coast theatre scene in the United States.

She's also the first actress to play both the president (Battlestar Galactica) and the First Lady (Independence Day) on the big screen.

McDonnell left university in New York to go straight onto the stage, and became a Broadway regular during the 1980s.

She received and Oscar nomination for her performance as Stands With A Fist in Costner's epic, and went on to star in Grand Canyon and Passion Fish.

In the latter - her first starring role - she plays an acid-tongued actress confined to a wheelchair following an accident.

While the role of a white girl raised by a Sioux tribe may have been a critical success, her most commercial hit was the hugely popular Independence Day, in which she played the first lady to bill Pullman's President.

Between 1999 and to date, McDonnell has mixed between film and television, with her performance as the mother of the titular character in Donnie Darko.

Recent big screen work includes the romance Nola as well as the TV series Battlestar Galactica and the role of Eleanor Carter in ER.