Julie Hagerty - Career

Career

Hagerty made her off-Broadway debut in 1979, starring in Mutual Benefit Life at her brother's theater, "The Production Company". She continued appearing on stage, including starring in a Broadway version of The House of Blue Leaves. Her first film role was in All That Jazz, but her small part was cut out of the finished film. She was subsequently cast in the parody film, Airplane!. It was released in June 1980 and became the third highest-grossing comedy in box office history at that time, behind National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977). Airplane! was considered the first of the modern parody genre and established Hagerty as a noted comedic actress.

Hagerty spent the 1980s starring in a number of theatrical films, ranging from the well-reviewed Lost In America and Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy to the badly received Beyond Therapy. Her roles often involved a naive or spaced-out character who seems to be unaware of whatever chaos was surrounding her, as exemplified in Airplane! and its sequel, Airplane II: The Sequel. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Hagerty mostly appeared in made-for-television movies or supporting roles in Hollywood films, including a part in the 2005 film, Just Friends and 2006 film, She's The Man. She was also cast in the 1994 Designing Women spin-off Women of the House, but she was committed to another project when filming began, so Valerie Mahaffey substituted for her in several episodes. She eventually joined the cast, filmed two episodes and resigned, handing the reins back to Mahaffey, who bowed out after one final appearance. In 2002, she appeared in the Broadway revival of Morning's at Seven. In 2007, she appeared in the CSI episode "Leapin' Lizards"; in 2011, she voiced Carol, Lois' sister, in the Family Guy episode Brothers & Sisters. Her most recent film appearance was as Hazel Bergeron in 2081, the film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's short story Harrison Bergeron.