Born Kathryn Ann Sackhoff on April 8, 1980 in Portland, OR, she was the youngest of two children born to developer Dennis Sackhoff and his wife Mary, an ESL educator. Sackhoff was active as a student and participated in ballet and competitive swimming until a knee injury forced her to give them up. She also participated in drama and dance at a very early age, winning the lead in several high school musical productions. Sackhoff moved to Los Angeles after her graduation from Sunset High School in Beaverton, OR to pursue a career in acting. There, she waited tables until she began landing roles in 1998 – first a supporting role in the TV movie “Fifteen and Pregnant” with Kirsten Dunst, and later, the lead in MTV’s failed pilot “Locust Valley.” Sackhoff worked steadily over the next few years as a guest performer on television shows and TV features before landing her first role as a series regular on the short-lived Fox Family Channel program “The Fearing Mind” (2000), about a horror and suspense writer whose life begins to intertwine with the plots of his novels.
Sackhoff quickly graduated to a minor role in her first theatrical feature, Christine Lahti’s May-December romance “My First Mister” (2001), before landing her second series, “The Education of Max Bickford” (CBS, 2001-02) as the headstrong daughter of top-billed Richard Dreyfuss. In interviews, Sackhoff commented that she was especially close with the veteran actor, who took her under his wing throughout the show’s brief production. Billed as Katee Sachoff, she next co-starred in “Halloween: Resurrection” (2002) as one of six college students who participate in a reality show contest that requires them to spend a night in the childhood home of horror movie icon Michael Myers, who – unbeknownst to them – has once again returned to commit mass murder.
The following year, producer Ronald D. Moore tapped Sackhoff for his re-imagining of the much-loved (if somewhat campy) science fiction series “Battlestar Galactica” (ABC, 1978-79). The miniseries, which aired on The Sci Fi Channel in 2003, was met with an overwhelming response by viewers, who made it the third highest-rated original program in the network’s history. Less positive, however, were fans’ reaction to Sackhoff’s casting as ace fighter pilot Starbuck, who had been played as a loveable rogue in the original series by Dirk Benedict (who also voiced a negative opinion of the new show to the press). However, the combination of Sackhoff’s performance and the show’s exceptional writing – which took her from lovestruck flight instructor who causes the accidental death of her intended – the son of Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos) and brother to Lee “Apollo” Adama, with whom Starbuck enjoys a love-hate relationship for several seasons – to a hard-bitten soldier who struggles with her past. In subsequent seasons, she found herself a test subject on a “farm” created by the show’s robotic villains, the Cylons, to generate human/Cylon hybrids. She is later convinced that she gave birth to a daughter due to that experience, but this is later proven to be wrong. By the end of the third season, Starbuck is attempting to rebuild her life, but finds herself unable to shake the experience concerning her alleged daughter. Her preoccupation appeared to lead to her death in the season three finale, but Starbuck was seen alive again at show’s end, proving to be a considerable relief to her substantial fan base. For her work, Sackhoff received two Saturn Award nominations for her performance and won the coveted science fiction trophy for Best Supporting Actress in 2006.
After ascending to stardom with “Galactica,” Sackhoff appeared in several genre-related projects designed to target her main audience. She was a cheery nurse who becomes involved with a man (Nathan Fillion) who is experiencing visions of the recently deceased in “White Noise 2: The Light” (2007), an in-name-only sequel to 2005’s “White Noise.” She also starred in the direct-to-DVD science fiction feature “The Last Sentinel” (2007) as a soldier helping kung fu star Don “The Dragon” Wilson fight robot soldiers in the future. Sackhoff also joined other “Galactica” co-stars to lend their voice to a 2007 episode of the irreverent animation/comedy series “Robot Chicken” (The Cartoon Network, 2005- ), and provided a voice for the popular video game “Halo 3.”
In 2007, Sackhoff had a recurring role on the revamped “Bionic Woman” as Sarah Corvus, who received bionic prosthetics prior to the show’s reluctant heroine, Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan), and went AWOL from the program after she discovered it was affecting her mental and physical health. Science fiction fans ate up the action-packed face-off between Ryan and Sackhoff, and the actress showed another facet of her acting talent with her performance, which alternated between feral and vulnerable. Unfortunately, the 2007-08 Writers’ Guild strike appeared to put an end to “Bionic Woman” which had already struggled to find an audience. Instead, Sackhoff simply returned to active duty on “Battlestar Galactica,” much to the delight of its devoted viewership.