Born in Southern California, Katherine Fugate first started out as a child actor on stage since she was 6. She went on to graduate from the University of California, Riverside with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre.

She blames her attraction to the arts on her aunt, Barbara Eden of I Dream of Jeannie (1965) fame.

She was a production assistant on several films and fetched coffee for directors before she worked at ICM, a talent and literary agency. She worked for literary agent Barry Mendel, who is now a successful producer. Realizing she was never meant to be an agent, she worked as an assistant at 20th Century Fox, working on movies like Alien³ (1992), This Is My Life (1992) and The Good Son (1993), until she became an executive herself on the Columbia Pictures lot. John Cox, who is now a screenwriter, was then her assistant.

She says it was the Northridge Earthquake that gave her clarity to remember she wanted to write, so she abandoned her film executive career to become a writer.

She told our class it wasn't easy and didn't happen quickly. That sometimes dreams take time, but you have to be responsible for them. (That was my favorite thing she said.) She delivered Chinese food and flowers before she finally made it.

The film Carolina (2003) is loosely based on her life, with Julia Stiles playing her. She said a lot of great things about Julia. She also appears at Xena conventions, teaches writing seminars to new writers (where I heard her speak) and she talks to teen groups about her mother's alcoholism and cousin's drug abuse because she doesn't want them to feel alone and hopes to "make a difference".

She just had a daughter she named Madeleine Barbara ("Madeleine" is after writer Madeleine L'Engle and "Barbara" is after her aunt). She also plays the drums and is big fan of the New Orleans Saints.

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Katherine Fugate

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