Mary McDonnell Height, Weight and Body Measurements

Mary McDonnell is generally listed at about 5 ft 6 in (168 cm) tall, with a slender, graceful build. She has not publicly shared her weight, so this article does not give one.

What viewers remember is the poise she brings, whether as a frontier woman, a president or a police captain.

Quick facts

Build and presence

McDonnell has an above-average, lean frame and a calm bearing that works well for authority figures. Over decades she has aged into roles that rely on gravitas, and her wardrobe on screen, from uniform jackets to tailored suits, plays that up. Offscreen she is rarely seen in flashy outfits and tends to appear in classic, simple styles at events.

Early career

She trained in theater and spent years on stage before film roles arrived. Her early screen work included Matewan and a part in Sneakers. Her breakthrough, though, was playing Stands With A Fist in Dances with Wolves (1990), a performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Two years later she was nominated for Best Actress for Passion Fish.

Battlestar Galactica

For many viewers, she is Laura Roslin, the schoolteacher turned President of the Twelve Colonies in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica (2004 to 2009). The series was acclaimed for its political and moral drama, and her performance anchored it. She received strong critical praise and nominations for the work, and the show remains a favorite of sci-fi fans.

The Closer and Major Crimes

She next played Captain Sharon Raydor, first in The Closer and then as the lead of the spin-off Major Crimes. The character began as an internal-affairs foil and grew into the center of her own series, which ran for several seasons.

Other roles

She has appeared in Independence Day as the First Lady, in Donnie Darko, and in many television guest spots and stage productions. She has also voiced animated and audio projects.

Personal life

McDonnell is married to actor Randle Mell, and the couple has been together for many years. She tends to speak more about her work than her private life.

Stage training

Before the movies, McDonnell was a stage actress. She trained in theater and worked on and off Broadway through the 1980s, and she was nominated for a Tony Award for Execution of Justice in 1986. That grounding shows in her screen work: she tends to play scenes with a stillness and economy that comes from years of holding an audience’s attention without a close-up. Directors who work with her often mention how well prepared she is, and how generous she is with co-stars.

Why Laura Roslin worked

Laura Roslin could have been a stock political figure. She began Battlestar Galactica as the 43rd person in line for the presidency, a quiet education secretary who suddenly inherits the job after a catastrophic attack. McDonnell played her as someone learning on the fly, firm in public and unsure in private, and the slow hardening of the character across four seasons became a major draw of the show. The cast was invited to speak at the United Nations in 2009 about the show’s themes, a sign of how seriously it was taken as political and moral drama. Roslin is regularly cited in lists of the best science-fiction leaders on television.

What fans ask

Fans often ask whether she was really nominated for two Oscars, and she was, for Dances with Wolves and Passion Fish. They also ask how she moved from sci-fi to police procedural so smoothly. Part of the answer is that Raydor, like Roslin, is a woman in authority who has to earn respect from people who resist her, and McDonnell is excellent at that tension. And many viewers ask about her height. At about 5 ft 6 in she is a touch taller than average, and her upright bearing makes her seem taller still on screen.

Frequently asked questions