Kathy Najimy

Kathy Ann Najimy was born on February 6, 1957, in San Diego, California, to Lebanese-American parents Samia (née Massery) and Fred Najimy, a postal worker. Her mother had immigrated from Lebanon to the United States in 1946. Najimy was raised Maronite Catholic and attended Crawford High School in San Diego. Her father died when she was 14. She later graduated from San Diego State University in 1995.

Najimy first gained national recognition through The Kathy and Mo Show, a feminist comedy play she co-wrote and performed with Mo Gaffney. The show premiered in 1981 and ran for three extended engagements in New York City, also generating two HBO specials: Parallel Lives and The Dark Side. Her film career began in the early 1990s with supporting roles in The Fisher King, Soapdish, This Is My Life, and The Hard Way. Her first major film role came in 1992 when she was cast as Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act alongside Whoopi Goldberg, a role she reprised in Sister Act 2 the following year. Also in 1993, she played Mary Sanderson in Hocus Pocus alongside Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker, a role she returned to in the 2022 Disney+ sequel Hocus Pocus 2. Among her other film credits are Hope Floats (1998), The Wedding Planner (2001), Rat Race (2001), the Academy Award-winning Disney and Pixar film WALL-E (2008), Step Up 3D (2010), The Guilt Trip (2012), Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas (2013), Dumplin' (2018) opposite Jennifer Aniston, Music (2021), and the Netflix romantic comedy Single All the Way (2021).

On television, Najimy was a series regular on the NBC sitcom Veronica's Closet from 1997 to 2000, playing Olive Massery. She also had a recurring dramatic role on Chicago Hope and appeared in three episodes of Ellen, playing a different character in each. Additional television credits include a four-season run as Wendy Keegan on HBO's Veep, series regular roles in season 4 of Unforgettable, season 4 of The Big C, and season 3 of Numbers, as well as guest appearances on Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Drop Dead Diva, That's So Raven, and Franklin & Bash. In 2015, she appeared as the Evil Queen in Disney's Descendants, and later that year co-starred in the Hallmark Channel film A Christmas Melody alongside Mariah Carey, Lacey Chabert, and Brennan Elliott, which drew 3.95 million viewers on its December 19 debut.

As a voice performer, Najimy has played Peggy Hill on Fox's animated series King of the Hill from 1997 to 2010, with the role continuing in the 2025 revival. Her animated film voice credits include Brother Bear 2, The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story, Cats Don't Dance, and Tinker Bell. In 2003, she took over from Melanie Griffith voicing Margalo in Stuart Little: The Animated Series, and in 2000 she succeeded Madeline Kahn as Mrs. Shapiro in Little Bill. She has also contributed voice work to series including BoJack Horseman, American Dad!, Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, Pepper Ann, and Hercules, and voiced a character in the Nightmare Ned video game. She stars in Disney Junior's reboot of The Rocketeer and in Amy Poehler's Duncanville.

Najimy's Broadway career includes her appearance in 2000 in Dirty Blonde, in which she starred as Mae West. She also appeared on Broadway in V-Day's production of The Vagina Monologues and in Nassim Soleimanpour's plays White Rabbit Red Rabbit and Nassim. Earlier in her career, she co-created and directed the musical revue Back to Bacharach and David, which ran in New York City in 1992 and 1993 and which she directed again in Los Angeles in April 2009. She also created and produced the off-Broadway play Gloria: A Life, about the life of activist Gloria Steinem.

Beyond performing, Najimy is an activist who has spoken publicly on issues including LGBTQ rights, women's reproductive rights, domestic violence, body image, AIDS awareness, and civil rights. She has addressed organizations including the Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, and PFLAG, and served as a surrogate speaker for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. In 2004, Ms. Magazine named her Woman of the Year, and she spoke at the March for Women's Lives. She is an active member of Time's Up. Najimy has also worked with PETA on animal welfare issues, receiving their Humanitarian of the Year award in 2000 and their Compassionate Action Award in 2014. She has used appearances on celebrity game shows to raise funds for charitable causes, winning $50,000 for the Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan on a celebrity edition of The Weakest Link, $100,000 for V-Day by winning the season 6 tournament of Celebrity Poker Showdown, and $100,000 for Girls Best Friend by being crowned Grand Champion on CBS's Gameshow Marathon in 2006. Since 2012, she has been creating, directing, and co-writing personal monologues with actresses including Olivia Wilde, Amy Schumer, Zosia Mamet, Debra Messing, Rosie Perez, and Gabourey Sidibe, performed at Glamour Magazine's live event series These Girls and at the 2017 and 2018 MAKERS conference. She has also performed her solo show Lift Up Your Skirt at venues including the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Feinstein's at The Nikko in San Francisco.