Jenny O'Hara

Jenny O'Hara is an American actress born on February 24, 1942, in Sonora, California, whose career has spanned Broadway, television, and film. Her father, John B. O'Hara, worked as a salesman, while her mother, Edith (Hopkins) O'Hara, was a journalist and drama teacher who founded and operated the 13th Street Repertory Company in New York City until her death at age 103 in 2020. O'Hara grew up alongside her younger sister Jill O'Hara, a singer and actress, and her brother Jack O'Hara, a singer and guitarist, in a household shaped by their mother's theatrical ambitions. John and Edith O'Hara eventually divorced. O'Hara made her stage debut at age five at the Bushkill Playhouse in the Poconos.

O'Hara's Broadway career ran from 1964 to 1985 and encompassed five productions. She first appeared on Broadway in 1964 in the dramatic play Dylan. In 1969 she took part in the musical The Fig Leaves Are Falling, and in 1970 she stepped into the role in Promises, Promises, succeeding her sister Jill, who had received a Tony Award nomination for the same production. Her remaining Broadway credits include The Iceman Cometh and The Odd Couple. Away from Broadway, O'Hara directed the off-Broadway play The Women Are No Different, a work addressing the abuse of wives.

Her television work brought her recurring roles across several decades. She portrayed Dixie Randazzo in the sitcom My Sister Sam from 1986 to 1988, was part of the ensemble cast for the first season of The Facts of Life, and played Janet Heffernan in The King of Queens from 2001 to 2007. She also appeared as Nita in Big Love from 2006 to 2009. Among her other television character roles, O'Hara played Ruth Manly on Black Beauty, Rebecca in Highcliffe Manor, Lucy Dexter on Secrets of Midland Heights, Lottie Murphy in Costello, and Muriel Spiegleman in Live In. She starred in several made-for-television films, including Brinks: The Great Robbery, The Return of the World's Greatest Detective, Blind Ambition, and Blinded by the Light with Kristy McNichol. Her guest appearances on television series include Kojak, Charlie's Angels, Barnaby Jones, Barney Miller, CHiPs, Law and Order, The X-Files, Beverly Hills 90210, NYPD Blue, ER, House M.D., Boston Legal, Reba, Six Feet Under, and Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected.

O'Hara's film credits include Career Opportunities, A Mother's Prayer, Mystic River, Matchstick Men, Extract, and the 2010 horror film Devil. In 1973, she owned and operated Jacob O'Hara Inc., a plant business in New York, through which she auctioned plants and offered advice on plant care.

O'Hara was married to interior designer and former actor August Dorr Watkins from 1968 until their divorce in 1974. Since 1986 she has been married to British-born American actor Nick Ullett, and together they have two daughters.