Teri Hatcher, Desperate Housewives Star, Celebrates Her Birthday

She’s played everything from a dancing “mermaid” to lascivious secretary and an unfulfilled single mother. And now, actress Teri Hatcher is taking on yet another role: birthday girl.

Happy Birthday, Teri Hatcher!

And that’s because she was born on December 8, 1964, in Palo Alto, California, which means that this much-beloved performer is turning 56 years old today!

Hatcher honed her craft at the American Conservatory Theater and accepted several employment opportunities including a stint as an NFL cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers.

In 1985, Hatcher made her acting debut on the romantic anthology series The Love Boat, where she played Amy, one of the cruise liner’s showgirls. One year later, Hatcher originated the role of Penny Parker on the action-adventure series MacGyver – a role she would reprise on a further five occasions. Also in 1986, Hatcher began appearing on the CBS daytime drama Capitol as Angelica Stimac Clegg.

Subsequent parts include a starring role in the Patty Duke vehicle Karen’s Song (1987), as well as guest appearances in episodes of Night Court (1987), CBS Summer Playhouse (1988), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988), L.A. Law (1989), and Quantum Leap.

Hatcher appeared in her first film in 1989, and her small role in that project – Christopher Guest’s The Big Picture – lead to her casting in the Sylvester Stallone picture Tango and Cash (1989).

Throughout the early 1990s, she continued to vacillate between silver screen efforts and TV programs. She played a schemer in Soapdish (1991), a satire about the daytime serial industry that starred Sally Field, Whoopi Goldberg, and Carrie Fisher, a broken-hearted diner in Straight Talk (1992), and lovelorn model Brainsmasher…A Love Story (1993).

She also had a lead role in Sunday Dinner (1991), a sitcom created by Norman Lear, and between 1993 and 1997, she portrayed intrepid reporter Lois Lane in the superhero series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, cementing her place in pop culture.

During her tenure at the DC Comics adaptation, Hatcher also entered the exclusive Bond Girls club when she appeared in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) as Paris Carver. Roles in films like Fever (1999), and Spy Kids (2001) followed as did appearances in episodes of Frasier and made-for-TV movies like Running Mates (2000), Say Uncle (2001), and Jane Doe (2001).

In 2004, Hatcher was selected to play one of the four central characters on the ABC serial Desperate Housewives. For the next eight years, Hatcher played Susan Mayer, and for her work, Hatcher received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, three Screen Actors Guild Awards (one as a solo actress and two as a part of an ensemble) and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy.

Hatcher has voiced several animated characters, including Coraline’s Mother/The Other Mother in Coraline (2009), Dottie in Planes (2013), and again in its sequel, Planes: Fire & Rescue. Hatcher is also a published author – Burnt Toast: And Other Philosophies of Life (2006) – and a singer.

Entertainment Hub would like to wish Teri Hatcher a very happy birthday, and you can too by clicking on the Twitter link below.