Celebrity crush: Katee Sackhoff (revised)

Here's a revised entry for an actress who's perfected the art of kicking ass while also looking good.

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Name: Katee Sackhoff (images | Web site | Twitter)
Hometown: Born in Portland, Ore., and raised in St. Helens, Ore., according to her Wikipedia profile.
Best Known For: Sackhoff has been acting for several years, but it wasn't until the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries (which then launched the TV series) that she became a star -- a star who was preceded by controversy, with her character Starbuck having undergone a change in gender since the original Galactica movie and TV series in the 1970s.

Other work includes multi-episode arcs on CSI and NBC's ill-fated Bionic Woman reboot (where she landed in a villainous role written much more interestingly than the material given to series star and fellow crush Michelle Ryan), and a co-starring role in the pretty terrible final season of 24, where she was saddled with one of the show's worst subplots ever. (Not her fault.)

As Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on the
contemporary Battlestar Galactica.

She's also put in a couple of riotous guest-shots on the sitcom The Big Bang Theory as ... Battlestar Galactica actress Katee Sackhoff, the ever-judgmental object of one character's sexual fantasies.

Katee's done tons of animation voice work, including multiple episodes of Robot Chicken and playing She-Hulk on The Super Hero Squad Show. In development is Longmire, a mystery pilot for the A&E cable network that also features fellow crush Cassidy Freeman.
Humble Beginnings: Her first role was in the Kristen Dunst made-for-TV movie Fifteen and Pregnant (which was exactly what it sounds like). She had a recurring role on MTV's late-night soap Undressed and played Richard Dreyfuss' daughter in the short-lived drama The Education of Max Bickford.

As a Hollywood vixen. Daaaaaaaaayum.

She was in the Leelee Sobieski/Albert Brooks movie My First Mister and the horror film Halloween: Resurrection pre-Galactica.
What the Hell? Dept.: Katee did a few episodes of Nip/Tuck but was replaced the next season, due to scheduling conflicts, with Rose McGowan ... who looks nothing like her ... playing the same character. No, I don't understand it either. (Glad I never got deeply hooked on that train wreck of a show.)

Missed Opportunities: Sackhoff shot a pilot for Dick Wolf titled Lost and Found, but NBC didn't pick it up, perhaps partly due to the ultimately disastrous move to fill the final hour of its prime-time schedule five nights a week with Jay Leno instead of the traditional dramas.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: First off, there's a lot to admire about her on a personal level. Katee is a cancer survivor (thyroid, diagnosed shortly after filming ended on Galactica -- apparently she wasn't feeling well during the final months of work on the series, Wikipedia notes). And she stopped smoking after receiving letters from young girls who cited her as a role model, according to her IMDB profile.

Also, her Galactica and Bionic Woman work, in particular, showcased her dramatic acting skills memorably. Yet she's also able to bring The Funny to a 90-second appearance on The Big Bang Theory with seemingly no effort.

She's certainly fit for action roles. But add all this to her smoking-hot looks, and she's the whole package.

TV and Web series credits: CSI, season 11 (Amazon | iTunes) * The Big Bang Theory, season 4: "The Hot Troll Deviation" (Amazon | iTunes) * 24, season 8 (Amazon | iTunes) * The Big Bang Theory, season 3: "The Vengeance Formulation" (Amazon | iTunes) * Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (2009 TV-movie) (Amazon | iTunes) * Battlestar Galactica, season 4 (Amazon | iTunes) * Law & Order, season 19: "Knock Off" (Amazon | iTunes) * Nip/Tuck, season 5 (Amazon | iTunes) * Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007 TV-movie) (Amazon | iTunes) * Bionic Woman (2007) (Amazon | iTunes) * Battlestar Galactica, season 3 (Amazon | iTunes) * Battlestar Galactica, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Battlestar Galactica, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * Cold Case, season 1: "Volunteers" (Amazon | iTunes) * Boomtown, season 2: "The Big Picture" (Amazon | iTunes) * Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries) (Amazon | iTunes) * ER, season 9: "A Hopeless Wound" (Amazon | iTunes) * The Education of Max Bickford (Amazon | iTunes) * The Fearing Mind (Amazon | iTunes) * Undressed, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Chicken Soup for the Soul: "Starlight, Star Bright" (Amazon | iTunes) * Zoe..., season 1: "Sympathy for Jack" (Amazon | iTunes)

Voice work: Batman: Year One (Amazon | iTunes) * The Cleveland Show, season 2: "Hot Cocoa Bang Bang" (Amazon | iTunes) * Robot Chicken, season 5 (Amazon | iTunes) * The Super Hero Squad Show, season 2: "So Pretty When They Explode!" (Amazon | iTunes) * Futurama, season 6/7: "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences" (Amazon | iTunes) * Robot Chicken, season 4 (Amazon | iTunes) * Resistance 2 (2008 video game) (Amazon) * Robot Chicken, season 3: "Rabbits on a Roller Coaster" (Amazon | iTunes)
Film and TV-movie credits: Evil Sexy Genius (Amazon | iTunes) * Growl (Amazon | iTunes) * The Haunting in Georgia (Amazon | iTunes) * How I Married My High School Crush (2007 TV-movie) (Amazon | iTunes) * The Last Sentinel (Amazon | iTunes) * White Noise 2: The Light (Amazon | iTunes) * Halloween: Resurrection (2002) (Amazon | iTunes) * My First Mister (Amazon | iTunes) * Hefner: Unauthorized (1999 TV-movie) (Amazon | iTunes) * Locust Valley (Amazon | iTunes)