Teri Lynn Hatcher (born December 8, 1964) is an American actress. She is known for her television roles as Susan Mayer on the ABC comedy-drama series Desperate Housewives, and Lois Lane on the ABC comedy-drama series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. In 2005 her Desperate Housewives work won her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and the Screen Actor's Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actress in a Comedy Series.
Hatcher was born in Palo Alto, California, the daughter of Esther (née Beshur), a computer programmer who worked for Lockheed Martin, and Owen W. Hatcher, a nuclear physicist and electrical engineer. Hatcher's father is of Welsh and Choctaw Native American descent, and her mother is of half Syrian and half French/German descent.Teri Hatcher took ballet lessons at the San Juan School of Dance in Los Altos. Her big debut was as the lead flying monkey in the "Wiz Of Oz." Hatcher grew up in Sunnyvale, California. and attended Mango Junior High (now Sunnyvale Middle School), Fremont High School in Sunnyvale and De Anza College in Cupertino. As an undergraduate she studied mathematics and engineering.
In March 2006 Hatcher revealed to Vanity Fair that she was sexually abused from the age of five by Richard Hayes Stone, an uncle by marriage who was later divorced by Hatcher's aunt. She said her parents were unaware of the abuse at the time. In 2002 she assisted Santa Clara County prosecutors with their indictment of Stone for a more recent molestation that led his female victim to commit suicide at the age of 14. Stone plead guilty to four counts of child molestation and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In an interview appearing in Vanity Fair, Hatcher said she told the prosecutors about her own abuse because she was haunted by thoughts of the 14-year-old girl who shot herself, and feared Stone might escape conviction. Stone died of colon cancer on August 19, 2008, having served six years of his sentence.
Hatcher studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater. One of her early jobs (in 1984) was as an NFL cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers. From September 1985 to May 1986 she joined the cast of the TV series The Love Boat, playing the role of "Amy", one of the "Mermaid" showgirls.From 1986 to 1989, she appeared in the recurring role of "Penny Parker" opposite Richard Dean Anderson's eponymous hero on the TV series MacGyver. In 1988, she made a guest appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Lt. Robinson. In 1989 she guest-starred in an episode of Quantum Leap titled "Star Crossed".
Hatcher landed a starring role of Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (opposite Dean Cain) in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman from 1993 to 1997. At the height of the show's popularity in 1995, a picture of Hatcher wrapped in a Superman cape was reportedly the most downloaded image on the Internet averaging 20,000 downloads each month for a six-month period. "It's a great shot," she told Entertainment Weekly. "Not so much because it's me. It's just cool looking."
In "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," the cast was worried that she would be taller than Superman in heels as she was 5'81⁄2" and Dean Cain was 6". Hatcher beat out Monica Bellucci for the role of Paris Carver in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.Hatcher was three months pregnant at the filming's start, by her then husband, Jon Tenney. An ABC publicist said the pregnancy did not affect the production schedule. Hatcher later regretted playing Paris Carver, saying, "It's such an artificial kind of character to be playing that you don't get any special satisfaction from it." She was voted the world's sexiest woman by readers of popular men's magazine FHM in the same year.[10] Hatcher also appeared in films such as Spy Kids (2001), Dead in the Water (1991), 2 Days in the Valley (1996) and The Cool Surface (1994). She co-starred with Alec Baldwin in Heaven's Prisoners (1996), which failed at the box office. ABC cancelled Lois & Clark in 1997.
Hatcher was born in Palo Alto, California, the daughter of Esther (née Beshur), a computer programmer who worked for Lockheed Martin, and Owen W. Hatcher, a nuclear physicist and electrical engineer. Hatcher's father is of Welsh and Choctaw Native American descent, and her mother is of half Syrian and half French/German descent.Teri Hatcher took ballet lessons at the San Juan School of Dance in Los Altos. Her big debut was as the lead flying monkey in the "Wiz Of Oz." Hatcher grew up in Sunnyvale, California. and attended Mango Junior High (now Sunnyvale Middle School), Fremont High School in Sunnyvale and De Anza College in Cupertino. As an undergraduate she studied mathematics and engineering.
In March 2006 Hatcher revealed to Vanity Fair that she was sexually abused from the age of five by Richard Hayes Stone, an uncle by marriage who was later divorced by Hatcher's aunt. She said her parents were unaware of the abuse at the time. In 2002 she assisted Santa Clara County prosecutors with their indictment of Stone for a more recent molestation that led his female victim to commit suicide at the age of 14. Stone plead guilty to four counts of child molestation and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In an interview appearing in Vanity Fair, Hatcher said she told the prosecutors about her own abuse because she was haunted by thoughts of the 14-year-old girl who shot herself, and feared Stone might escape conviction. Stone died of colon cancer on August 19, 2008, having served six years of his sentence.
Hatcher studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater. One of her early jobs (in 1984) was as an NFL cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers. From September 1985 to May 1986 she joined the cast of the TV series The Love Boat, playing the role of "Amy", one of the "Mermaid" showgirls.From 1986 to 1989, she appeared in the recurring role of "Penny Parker" opposite Richard Dean Anderson's eponymous hero on the TV series MacGyver. In 1988, she made a guest appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Lt. Robinson. In 1989 she guest-starred in an episode of Quantum Leap titled "Star Crossed".
Hatcher landed a starring role of Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (opposite Dean Cain) in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman from 1993 to 1997. At the height of the show's popularity in 1995, a picture of Hatcher wrapped in a Superman cape was reportedly the most downloaded image on the Internet averaging 20,000 downloads each month for a six-month period. "It's a great shot," she told Entertainment Weekly. "Not so much because it's me. It's just cool looking."
In "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," the cast was worried that she would be taller than Superman in heels as she was 5'81⁄2" and Dean Cain was 6". Hatcher beat out Monica Bellucci for the role of Paris Carver in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.Hatcher was three months pregnant at the filming's start, by her then husband, Jon Tenney. An ABC publicist said the pregnancy did not affect the production schedule. Hatcher later regretted playing Paris Carver, saying, "It's such an artificial kind of character to be playing that you don't get any special satisfaction from it." She was voted the world's sexiest woman by readers of popular men's magazine FHM in the same year.[10] Hatcher also appeared in films such as Spy Kids (2001), Dead in the Water (1991), 2 Days in the Valley (1996) and The Cool Surface (1994). She co-starred with Alec Baldwin in Heaven's Prisoners (1996), which failed at the box office. ABC cancelled Lois & Clark in 1997.