This attractive and engaging talent became a TV star as the Vietnam nurse Colleen McMurphy in the acclaimed ABC series "China Beach" (1988-91). Dana Delany is the granddaughter of the inventor of the Delany toilet-flush valve and was raised in upper-middle-class Stamford, Connecticut. After attending prep school, she graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in drama and headed to NYC where she soon found work in TV commercials and on daytime serials ("Love of Life” and "As the World Turns"). Her first real break, however, came when she was cast as the young version of Roy Dotrice's wife in the Broadway production of Hugh Leonard's play "A Life" (1980). Delany segued to the big screen in a bit role in "The Fan" (1981) and went on to play a nun in "Where the River Runs Black" (1986), John Glover's lover in "Masquerade" (1988) and a member of the SLA who kidnapped "Patty Hearst" (1988), directed by Paul Schrader. At the same time, she found herself cast in the role of the consummate girlfriend in guest spots on "Magnum, P.I." and "Moonlighting". Delany headlined the little-seen NBC sitcom "Sweet Surrender" (1987) before finding fame and earning two Emmy Awards for "China Beach.”
After achieving small screen recognition, Delany returned to features, playing Steve Martin's cold-hearted girlfriend in "Housesitter" and Willem Dafoe's suicidal ex-lover in Schrader's "Light Sleeper" (both 1992). She delivered fine support as the lover and soon-to-be wife of Kurt Russell's Wyatt Earp in the solidly entertaining "Tombstone" (1993) before tackling her first screen lead as a leather-clad dominatrix in the tame and contrived crime yarn-cum-sex farce, "Exit to Eden" (1994). Delany's much anticipated return to Broadway in 1995 proved a bust when the play—Brian Friel's "Translations"—failed to attract an audience. She bounced back with the lead in the Lifetime biopic "Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story" (1995) and as a schoolteacher stricken with the potentially fatal disease scleroderma in "For Hope" (ABC, 1996).
Delany went on to portray the steadfast lover of an eccentric Jeff Daniels in "Fly Away Home" (1996) and a Texas suffragette in the Western miniseries "True Women" (CBS, 1997). She and Martin Donovan played a Dutch farm couple who harbor Jews during WWII in the 1998 Showtime original "Rescuers: Stories of Courage: Two Couples". The actress next stepped into Ellen Burstyn's Oscar-nominated role as a car crash survivor who develops healing powers in a small screen remake of "Resurrection" (ABC, 1999). Delany returned to the stage in the Pulitzer-winning Off-Broadway play "Dinner With Friends" in 2000. The following year, she netted another Emmy nomination for her guest turn on an episode of CBS' "Family Law" and in the fall returned to series TV as society heiress in the Fox primetime serial "Pasadena,” with Martin Donovan once again cast as her husband.
Delany returned to series television as an oncologist in "Presidio Med" (CBS, 2002-2003), a hour-long medical drama about a group of doctors who eschew modern bureaucracy for a more hands on, patient centered approach to medicine. Despite a solid cast that included Blythe Danner as a veteran OB/Gyn and Julianne Nicholson as a maverick pediatrician, “Presidio Med” was canceled after its premiere season. She then gave a passionate performance as a Quaker teacher who helps a hardened criminal (Omar Epps) earn his college degree after a brush with Shakespeare’s sonnets invigorates his mind in the made-for-cable movie, “Conviction” (Showtime, 2002). In “A Time to Remember” (Hallmark, 2003), Delany played the estranged daughter of a woman (Doris Roberts) degenerating into Alzheimer’s disease who returns home for Thanksgiving in an attempt to reconcile with her family. After voicing Lois Lane on the animated “Justice League Unlimited” (Cartoon Network, 2003- ), she starred in the heart-tugging true story, “Baby For Sale” (Lifetime, 2004), playing a woman who, along with her husband (Hart Bochner), agree to go undercover to expose a baby-selling ring when they find out the baby they’re trying to adopt is being auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Delany made a brief return to the feature world with a supporting role in “Spin” (2004), playing the Anglo wife of a Mexican ranch foreman who raises an 8-year-old boy abandoned by his uncle after his parents die in a plane crash. She made appearances on episodes of “Boston Legal” (ABC, 2004- ), “Kojak” (USA, 2005) and “Related” (WB, 2005- ), then played a U.S. senator on “The L Word” (Showtime, 2004- ). Delany then gave a riveting guest performance in “Battlestar Galactica” (Sci-Fi Channel, 2005- ), playing a civilian grieving the loss of her husband during a Cylon raid. After finding out that the fleet is holding a Cylon agent for intelligence purposes, she pulls a weapon in a bar aboard a luxury ship and holds the occupants hostage, demanding that the Cylon spy be executed or the hostages will die.