Kathleen "Bird" York
Kathleen "Bird" York
Crash, Seven Pounds, The West Wing, Love Can Build a Bridge
With her dark sandy vocals and haunting melodies, Bird York is probably best known for her Academy Award-nominated song – In The Deep – for the Oscar-winning film Crash. With an understated delivery, the song wrapped a memorable aural blanket around the film’s pivotal ending sequence. Her song Have No Fear serves a very similar purpose in the searing last five minutes of the drama Seven Pounds, starring Will Smith.
Nic Harcourt, respected music guru at NPR flagship KCRW-FM/Los Angeles, calls Bird, “a songwriter of extraordinary depth with a voice to match.” Music Biz magazine referred to her brand of moody groove as “torch trip hop”. A songwriter since her early teens, Bird started her own label Blissed Out Records in 1999 releasing two critically acclaimed cds, the self titled Bird York and Wicked Little High (distributed by EMI).
Working as a producer or co producer on her own records, collaborations also include Grammy award winning mixer-engineer Thom Russo (Audioslave, Macy Gray, Juanez) and Grammy Award winning producer Larry Klein (Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell).
York’s music has been featured prominently in Nip /Tuck (FX), House (FOX), CSI:NY, In Justice (ABC), Everwood (WB), Stand Off, an entire season of Paul Haggis’ CBS series Family Law, Newline’s Happy Campers as well as in the John Cusack produced film Never Get Outta The Boat.
In tandem with her music career, York has worked extensively in front of the camera. Acting highlights include her recurring role as Congresswoman Andrea Wyatt on The West Wing, the lead role as a young Naomi Judd in the four hour NBC miniseries biopic Love Can Build A Bridge as well as starring roles in films opposite Diane Keaton, Tom Waits, Tom Cavanaugh, Dennis Hopper and cameos in Crash, Desperate Housewives and Curb Your Enthusiasm. She also appeared on CSI with Laurence Fishburne, Ghost Whisperer, Malcolm in the Middle, The O.C., and Chase.
Wanting to combine her acting and song writing skills, she embarked on a screen writing career in 2005 and has developed or sold scripts outright to Warner Bros, Sony, Paramount and Fox Television Studios. 2009 saw her completing the prestigious Showrunner's Training Program hosted by the Writers Guild of America in association with the Alliance of Motion Picture Producers Association.
"I feel more like a musician. I write all of my music, perform it and produce or co-produce it, so all of this involves a lot more of my time than acting. I'm also very selective about what acting roles I do, so I find myself sitting on the sidelines quite a bit... but making music all of the time. I lead kind of a double life, Bird York, the recording artist, and Kathleen York, the actor."
Birdyork.com - Official Website
Kathleen "Bird" York at the Internet Movie Database