Dana Welles Delany (born March 13, 1956) is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, presenter, and health activist. Delany has been active in show business since the late 1970s. Following small roles early in her career, Delany garnered her first leading role in 1987 in the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender and achieved wider fame in 1988–1991 as Colleen McMurphy on the ABC television show China Beach, for which she won two Primetime Emmy Awards (1989, 1992). She returned to the DC Universe in an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold as Vilsi, an alternate universe variation of Lois Lane. She reprised her role in the 2013 animated movie, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. She received further recognition for her performances in the films Light Sleeper (1992), Tombstone (1993), Exit to Eden (1994), The Margaret Sanger Story (1995), Fly Away Home (1996), True Women (1997), and Wide Awake (1998). Since the mid-1990s, Delany has served on the board of the Scleroderma Research Foundation. In the years following China Beach, Delany worked steadily in television, movies and theater. In addition, she established herself as a significant voice talent.
In the 2000s, Delany returned to television with a string of short-lived television series beginning with Pasadena (2001), Presidio Med (2002–2003), and Kidnapped (2006–2007). From 2007 to 2010, Delany played Katherine Mayfair on the ABC series Desperate Housewives. Delany is also a voice actress. She played Lois Lane in the DC animated universe as well as in The Batman animated series. In addition, she has supported Planned Parenthood. She attended the organization's 90th birthday celebration in New York City in 2006. Delany said: "It's hard to imagine where we'd be in this country had Margaret Sanger not founded that first clinic here in New York, 90 years ago." She attended events sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. In an interview, she said she loves to play "complicated characters". After growing up in Stamford, Connecticut, she attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, for her senior year and was a member of the school's first co-educational class, which included jazz composer Bill Cunliffe, software executive Peter Currie, artist Julian Hatton, poet Karl Kirchwey, writer Nate Lee, editor Sara Nelson, restaurateur Priscilla Martel and sculptor Gar Waterman. "Andover was the best time of my life," she recalled. In 1998, Delany reportedly turned down the role of Carrie Bradshaw in the hit TV show Sex and the City.