Deborah Rennard

The wife of the film and television writer-director Paul Haggis, Deborah Rennard made her acting debut as Sly Lovegren, the last and most loyal of the Texas oil magnate J.R. Ewing's secretaries on the powerhouse prime-time soap "Dallas." While performing on the series from its fifth season in 1981 to its end in 1991, she counterbalanced her subservient image by starring as a femme fatale and a feminist warrior, respectively, in the action-packed drama "Lionheart" and the post-apocalyptic sci-fi film "Land of Doom." Rennard appeared on episodes of the scandalous crime drama "Silk Stalkings" and the classic soap "Days of Our Lives" before landing a recurring role as Dr. Esther Pearson on the mismatched-duo police show "Due South," marking her first collaboration with series creator Haggis. In addition to appearing in Haggis-directed episodes of the 1999-2002 series "Family Law," Rennard spread her wings as a producer of her husband's short-lived crime series "EZ Streets" as well as the military mystery "In the Valley of Elah," a film written and directed by Haggis. In 1996, Rennard reunited with her Dallas co-stars for the cliffhanger-resolving TV movie "Dallas: J.R. Returns."