Catherine Lisa Bell (born August 14, 1968) is an actress known for her role of Lt. Colonel Sarah MacKenzie of the television show JAG from 1995 to 2005. Recently she has starred in the Lifetime Television hit series Army Wives as Denise Sherwood.Bell was born in London, England, the daughter of Mina, a personal assistant and nurse, and Peter Bell, an architect.Her mother was Iranian and her father English.Her parents divorced and she and her mother moved to Los She acted in various television advertisements as a child. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with an interest in becoming either a biomedical engineer or a physician but dropped out to become a full-time model.
One of Bell's first modeling jobs was an extended asAngeles, California when she
was three years old. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of twelve.A self-described "geek", Bell thrived in math and biology classes in school, and in junior high school once programmed a computer video game.signment in Japan. When she returned to California, she studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse with Milton Katselas. Her first television acting role was one line on the sitcom "Sugar and Spice" (1990).Her first appearance in a film was as a partially nude body double for Isabella Rossellini in Death Becomes Her (1992).
