Carolyn Hennesy

Early life

Hennesy was born on June 10, 1962, in Encino, California. She is the daughter of production designer and art director Dale Hennesy, who won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage.

Acting

Hennesy starred as Mrs. Valentine on the teen drama Dawson's Creek in the 2000–2001 season, and she had supporting roles in the films Global Effect (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde (2003), Click (2006), The Heat Chamber (2003) and Cougar Club (2007). She made three appearances on That '70s Show and has guest-starred on Reba as the mother of Reba's son-in-law, Van. She made a guest appearance on Drake & Josh as Mrs. Abernathy, the boss of the Ball & Vance Fish Corp. Additionally, she appeared as Judith Haven in an episode of What I Like About You and she voiced Blair Lansfield in the video game Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. Currently, she stars as Rosalyn Harris in the fifth season of HBO hit series True Blood. In 2016, she joined the cast of the Netflix production Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

Since 2006, Hennessy has played Diane Miller on the daytime soap opera General Hospital. She was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for the role in 2010.

In October 2011, Hennesy appeared on Jessie as Mrs. Chesterfield, and in November 2011 as Myrna in the "That Still Small Voice" episode of Once Upon a Time. She also guest starred in Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures.

In 2016, Hennesy appeared in the soap opera web series The Bay as Karen Blackwell. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting or Guest Actress in a Digital Daytime Drama Series for the role.

Writing

Hennesy has written a series of children's books based on the character Pandora. The first one, called Pandora Gets Jealous, was released January 2008. The sequel, Pandora Gets Vain, was released August 2008. The third book in the series, Pandora Gets Lazy, released March 2009. Book four, Pandora Gets Heart, was released in January 2010. The fifth book, Pandora Gets Angry, was released in February 2011. Book six, Pandora Gets Greedy, was released in June 2012. Book seven, Pandora Gets Frightened, was released in 2013.

Hennesy wrote the 2011 novel The Secret Life of Damian Spinelli featuring characters from General Hospital. The novel reached #16 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Wildlife conservation and zoo advocacy

Hennesy is a wildlife conservationist and zoo animal welfarist. She is an outspoken critic of PETA and anti-zoo proponents. The actress became a staunch advocate of the zoo and aquarium industry after visiting several prominent zoological facilities and researching their science and education programs. In 2015, she defended SeaWorld during the California Coastal Commission's hearings regarding the fate of the captive born and reared orca housed as SeaWorld parks.

Animal Magnetism

Hennesy is also the producer and host of Animal Magnetism, a radio program featuring zoo professionals. The program focuses on welfare and conservation issues and examines both the human-animal bond and the global increase in human-wildlife conflict resulting from human over-population growth and climate change.

American Humane Association

In 2016, Hennesy was named an American Humane Association celebrity ambassador and spoke before a congressional committee on the organization's new humane conservation initiative.

Personal life

Hennesy is a niece of actress Barbara Rush and cousin of Fox News reporter Claudia Cowan. She lives in Los Angeles. In 2007, Hennesy married Donald Agnelli. They divorced in 2013. She is a trapeze artist. When asked how she got involved with it, Hennesy revealed, “I got involved in it many years ago when I was at university and I was doing a production of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. Then I progressed to the flying trapeze and I never looked back. I have a static trapeze rig in my backyard, but my main love is still the flying trapeze.” She has two brothers. Scott Hennesy works at Disney World as an imagineer.