The half-Iranian actress Catherine Bell is no longer appearing on television constantly as she did for 17 years as a fixture on “JAG” and then “Army Wives.”
“Army Wives” wrapped up last spring. Bell has now appeared in just two of the 10 episodes so far of the new show “King & Maxwell” and she will be starring again next year as the Good Witch in the annual Hallmark television movie of that name as she has since 2008.
Bell recently turned 45, but it isn’t fading beauty that is limiting her appearances. From 1996 to 2005, she appeared in 206 of the 227 episodes of “JAG” and from 2007 to 2013 she appeared in all 117 episodes of “Army Wives.”
Bell, once a clothes model, became a role model for many American teens in the 1990s, given the very strong role she played in “JAG,” where she was a Marine officer, a lawyer and a physically strong figure as she kickboxed, disarmed terrorists and generally foiled the forces of evil.
Bell is, however, an intriguing mix of cultures—a Valley Girl munching on tadiq.
By blood, Bell is half-Iranian and half-English. But by family upbringing, she’s Iranian. And by teen influences, she distinctly California.
Her mother, Mina Ezzati, went to London to study nursing and married a Scotsman, Peter Bell. Catherine was born of that union in 1968. But her parents divorced when Catherine was 2 and she was raised by her Iranian mother, grandmother and grandfather.
Eventually, the family ended up in California’s San Fernando Valley. “We spoke Persian in the house,” Bell told the weekly Parade. “I have a strong family unit, a lot of respect for elders…. Lots of food and hugging and kissing.”
But after her teen years in the San Fernando Valley, “I am definitely a Valley Girl. I was a tomboy. I liked to skateboard, play football and push the envelope a little bit.”
She enrolled at UCLA and contemplated a career in medicine or research. But when she was offered a modeling job in Japan—where advertisers grave “American beauty”—she dropped out during her sophomore year.
When she returned home, she decided to try television acting. In 1995, she got a three-line role in one episode of “JAG.” NBC canceled the show and CBS then picked it up. The show was restructured with the character of a woman Marine lawyer added. Catherine applied. And that was that.
One episode of the show portrayed her character, Sarah MacKenzie, specifically as an Iranian-American. She spoke some Farsi in that episode.
JAG means Judge Advocate General, the military’s name for its corps of lawyers.
Bell is also heard, albeit it not seen, voicing one of the characters in the animation, “Babak and Friends: A First Now Ruz,” where another of the voices is that of Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo.
Bell was seen, albeit not heard, in the 1992 film “Death Becomes Her,” where she was the nude body double for Meryl Streep.
When she was in her 20s, she had thyroid cancer and had to have her thyroid surgically removed. She doesn’t cover the scar on her neck, which she thinks is “cool.”
Bell is separated from her husband and dotes on her two children, Gemma, born in 2003 and, Roman, born in 2010.
With fewer television shows, Bell has more time now to be a mother. “I love being a mom more than anything! It’s absolutely the best ‘job’ I’ve ever had,” she said in a recent interview. “I have a tattoo of each of my kid’s name. Gemma is in Persian on my left wrist and Ronan on my right inner forearm in an ancient Celtic alphabet called Ogham.”
Bell’s mother said, “I was a registered nurse in London when I met Catherine’s father. It was all very romantic. Peter was an architect who signed a contract with the oil company in Iran. When Catherine was three months old, we took her there. I remember when my mom met up with us at Mehrabad airport, with Catherine in my arms.”
She said, “Catherine can’t read or write Farsi, because we left Iran while she was just an infant. But since my mom and dad lived with us, she learned to speak the language well. I’d say she is about 75 percent to 80 percent fluent. She’s very proud of her Iranian grandparents and what they taught her and is very appreciative of her culture.”
One of the controversies about Bell is that she decided to become a Scientologist. With her diverse background, Bell was exposed to many different religions early on in her life. Bell said, “My Persian grandparents were Muslim, but I was also raised with Catholicism and Baptist summer camp….
“I had a lot of friends and fellow actors who were Scientologists and the more I got to know these people, the more I saw how they were really ethical and honest, very successful, that they had great relationships and marriages…. So I took a couple of courses and they changed my life, the way I looked at everything from my relationships to the problems I was having with my auditions.”