Katharine McPhee

Katharine Hope McPhee was born on March 25, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, where she was raised before her family relocated to the Sherman Oaks neighborhood when she was twelve years old. Her father, Daniel McPhee, worked as a television producer, and her mother, Peisha McPhee, became a vocal coach on American Idol in 2011. McPhee's older sister, Adriana, also joined the show as a vocal coach in 2012. Of English, Irish, Scottish, and German descent, McPhee demonstrated musical ability early in life, and her mother took on the role of training her. She attended Boston Conservatory for three semesters as a musical theatre major before leaving at her manager's recommendation to pursue television work in Los Angeles. Prior to her national breakthrough, she appeared in a March 2005 Cabrillo Music Theater production of Annie Get Your Gun, playing Annie Oakley, a performance that earned her a nomination for a Los Angeles Stage Ovation Award in the category of Lead Actress in a Musical.

McPhee rose to national prominence in 2006 as the runner-up on the fifth season of American Idol, finishing behind Taylor Hicks. Her run on the competition generated the fan-coined term "McPheever." She had auditioned in San Francisco, performing "God Bless the Child," and advanced through Hollywood week with performances including "I'll Never Love This Way Again" and "My Funny Valentine." Among the guest mentors during her season were producer David Foster and singer Andrea Bocelli, both of whom she went on to collaborate with professionally after the competition concluded. Following the finale, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa visited her alma mater, Notre Dame High School, and proclaimed the day Katharine McPhee Day.

On June 6, 2006, McPhee signed with 19 Recordings Limited and RCA Records. Her Idol single, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/My Destiny," was released on June 27, 2006, with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" peaking at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remaining on the chart for more than 58 weeks. It ranked as the second-best-selling single of 2006 behind Taylor Hicks' "Do I Make You Proud." Later that year, she recorded a duet with Andrea Bocelli on "Can't Help Falling in Love" for his album Under the Desert Sky, released on November 7, 2006. Her self-titled debut album, released on January 30, 2007, on RCA Records, debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 381,000 copies through December 2010. Its first single, "Over It," reached the Billboard Top 30 and was certified gold in 2008.

Her second album, Unbroken, was released on January 5, 2010, on Verve Forecast Records, debuting at number 27 on the Billboard 200 and selling 45,000 copies through January 2011. Its single "Had It All" peaked at number 22 on the AC chart. In October 2010, McPhee released the holiday album Christmas Is the Time to Say I Love You, which debuted at number 11 on the Billboard Top Holiday Albums chart, while its single "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" reached number 16 on the Billboard AC chart. Her fourth album, Hysteria, followed in September 2015, and her fifth, I Fall in Love Too Easily, a collection of jazz standards, was released in November 2017.

Alongside her recording career, McPhee built a substantial acting profile. She appeared in the films The House Bunny and Shark Night 3D, and played Karen Cartwright in the television series Smash from 2012 to 2013. From 2014 to 2018, she starred as Paige Dineen in Scorpion. She also had a small role as Paramount Girl in the 2007 musical film Crazy, a part she had filmed in early 2005 before her American Idol audition.

McPhee made her Broadway debut in 2018, taking on the role of Jenna in Waitress. She subsequently originated the role in the West End production of the show in 2019 and returned to the Broadway production for an additional run from 2019 to 2020. In addition to her professional work, McPhee founded a charity called McPhee Outreach in 2006, which partnered with the Lollipop Theater Network to bring music programming to children in Southern California hospitals and collaborated with Global Compassion Services to build a preschool in Burkina Faso.