Whatever Happened to Lesley Ann Warren? Here’s What the ‘9-1-1’ Guest Star Has Been Up to

Lesley Ann Warren, February 1990. — Tony Costa/TV Guide/courtesy Everett Collection

At 78, singer and actress Lesley Ann Warren is 60 years into a show business career that kicked off with a star-making performance in 1965’s Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and has taken her everywhere from big screen musicals like 1982’s Victor/ Victoria to a run as Teri Hatcher‘s man-crazy mom on Desperate Housewives in the early 2000s. Tonight, she’ll return to the small screen again on 9-1-1, where she’ll be playing Ann, mother to Bobby (Peter Krause). What else has Warren been doing in recent years?

A Cinderella Story

CINDERELLA, Richard Rodgers, Lesley Ann Warren, 1965.

Sheedy-Long / TV Guide / Courtesy Everett Collection

While most actors begin their careers with small roles before working their way up to bigger parts, Warren was almost immediately a leading lady. After training as a ballet dancer throughout her childhood, Warren pivoted to acting at age 17, and began attending classes at New York City’s famous Actors Studio. She made her Broadway debut soon after, and at 18, she was selected to star in the television production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, in the title role previously played by a pre-Mary Poppins Julie Andrews.

Warren made her feature film debut in the 1967 Disney musical The Happiest Millionaire, but throughout the ’70s, she found more of a home on the small screen — after a number of guest roles on shows like The Mod Squad, Warren joined the cast of Mission: Impossible in 1970, during its fifth season, picking up her first Golden Globe nomination in the process.

In the decade that followed, Warren became a TV movie MVP, and eventually won a Best Actress Golden Globe in 1977 for her portrayal of an impoverished woman who grows into a successful madam in the mini-series 79 Park Avenue.

Warren at the Movies

Warren returned to feature films in the ’80s, making a big splash in 1982’s Victor/ Victoria, where she appeared as the ditsy Norma, a cabaret performer who is dating James Garner‘s King (who in turn loves Victoria, played by Julie Andrews). The role got her Best Supporting Actress nominations at both the Oscars and the Golden Globes, and though she didn’t win either, the part was a leap forward for Warren’s career — throughout the ’80s and ’90s, she often popped up as a seductive woman (Clue, Color of Night) or in roles that made use of her powerful vocal chops (the 1984 Kris Kristofferson/ Willie Nelson vehicle Songwriter, which garnered her another Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe nod).

By the late ’90s, she had embraced the world of indie movies, appearing in Steven Soderburgh’s 1999 action film The Limey and as Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s emotionally dysfunctional mother in the 2002 James Spader film Secretary.

A Return to TV

In 2001, Warren also picked up her first regular TV role in decades — as Tina, mistress of Will’s father, on Will and Grace. TV would occupy much of Warren’s career for the following decade. In 2005, she jumped to Desperate Housewives, where she periodically appeared at Teri Hatcher’s flighty, romance-addled mother, Sophie. And in 2008, she co-starred on the USA Network crime drama In Plain Sight, where she played the troubled mother of US Marshal Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack) for all of the show’s five season.

What Is Lesley Ann Warren Doing Now?

PANHANDLE, from left: Lesley Ann Warren, Lorenza Izzo, To Bell or Not To Bell?', (Season 1, ep. 101, aired Sept. 26, 2022).

In the years since In Plain Sight ended, Warren has stayed as busy as ever — mostly with TV guest roles, although she does still appear in films, typically indies. She appeared as a character named “Leslie” in a 2013 episode of Psych that paid tribute to Clue, and has popped up in episodes of Daredevil, Patrick Stewart‘s Blunt Talk, Community, and All Rise.

Warren’s last TV appearance was in 2022, on the Spectrum Roku crime dramedy Panhandle, which starred The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s Luke Kirby; Warren played his mother, an agoraphobic widow, in all eight episodes of the series. It was her last appearance on the small screen until tonight’s 9-1-1 episode.