Michele Lee (born June 24, 1942) is an American actress, singer, dancer, producer and director. She is known for her role as Karen Fairgate MacKenzie on the prime-timesoap operaKnots Landing, for which she was nominated for a 1982 Emmy Award and won the Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Actress in 1988, 1991, and 1992. She was the only performer to appear in all 344 episodes of the series.
Michele Lee Dusick was born in Los Angeles on June 24, 1942, the daughter of Sylvia Helen (née Silverstein), and Jack Dusick, a makeup artist.[3][4][5] She attended Alexander Hamilton High School.[6]
Career
Career beginnings
Her television career began at age 19, on the December 26, 1961, episode of the CBS-TV sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
After she sang in the film version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, she became known for her roles in the films The Comic, opposite Dick Van Dyke, and The Love Bug, opposite Dean Jones, the latter becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 1969 in the United States. That same year, she starred in a special television production of the Jerome Kern–Otto Harbach musical, Roberta, in which she sang "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", and also peaked at #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 with "L. David Sloane". She recorded two records on Columbia Records in the 1960s, in addition to her singing work on original Broadway cast albums. After the birth of her son, she worked infrequently until accepting a role on Broadway in Seesaw, which netted her a Tony Award nomination in 1974. After her mother's death, she stopped working to spend time with her son.
In 1979, Lee accepted the role of Karen Fairgate on Knots Landing, a spin-off of the highly popular Dallas. Though slow to start, the series eventually became a ratings hit and became one of the longest-running American primetime dramas ever, lasting for a total of 14 seasons from 1979–1993.[1] Due to her long-running tenure, Lee's alter ego is often credited as being the center of the program. Television personality Joan Rivers commented that Lee was, in theory, the "First Lady of Knots Landing" during her guest appearance on The Late Show, then hosted by Rivers.[8] The characters of the serial often represented what was happening in society at the time. Lee acknowledged that, saying, "Karen wanted to be a Pollyanna and wasn't ashamed of that. Remember in our society...when we could go over to other people's houses and come in through an open back door? I remember when I was a little girl and my mother and father would have people over and they'd walk into an unlocked door in our house."[9] Lee was the only performer to appear in all of the show's 344 episodes.[citation needed]
During the fall of 1982, her character met M. Patrick "Mack" MacKenzie (Kevin Dobson), who became her screen husband the following year. They would continue working together until the end of the series. Lee won the Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Lead Actress (Primetime) three times, and was also nominated for an Emmy in 1982 for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series".[10] In 1983, the writer and producers of Knots Landing urged her to do a storyline based on prescription drug dependency, which became one of her most prominent storylines. Six years later, Lee directed her first of several episodes of the series. In 1991, Knots Landing reached a milestone with its 300th episode. During the same season, Lee filmed her favorite scene from the series, known as the "Pollyanna Speech" among fans. In this scene, for which Lee had much input, Karen reacts strongly against the social problems of 1990s society and explains how she does not want to be a Pollyanna and see the world through rose-colored glasses, but rather wanted the world to be rose-colored.[11]
Lee returned to Broadway in 2015 to star as Madame Morrible in the musical Wicked.[13]
In 2025, Lee reunited with KL co-stars Joan Van Ark and Donna Mills for the episodic podcast We're Knot Done Yet, available on streaming platforms such as Podbean and Spotify.[14]
Personal life
In 1963, Lee met actor James Farentino on the set of the play How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and in 1966, they were married.[15] They have a son, David Farentino. Lee and Farentino divorced in 1983.[6] She has been married to writer/producer Fred Rappaport since 1987.[16]
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