Katharine McPhee built a sustained presence in entertainment after placing second during the fifth season of American Idol, moving fluidly between acting and recording over subsequent decades. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s she juggled parts in series including Smash and Scorpion while continuing to release music that showcased her vocal flexibility. Frequent partnerships with figures connected to the Idol franchise, among them Randy Jackson, Andrea Bocelli, and David Foster, complemented a smooth delivery that suited both mainstream pop outings such as her 2007 self-titled debut and 2015’s Hysteria as well as the more classic standards collection I Fall in Love Too Easily from 2017. A third-place result on The Masked Singer, performed as a duo with Foster, preceded the November 2022 holiday EP Christmas Songs issued on Loma Vista.
Born in Sherman Oaks, California, McPhee started singing at the age of two. Her mother, Patricia McPhee, who performs and records under the name Peisha McPhee, guided her daughter’s vocal development and later joined McPhee’s older sister Adriana as a coach on American Idol. Although she sang and performed throughout childhood and high school, McPhee treated music more seriously while enrolled at Boston Conservatory as a musical theater student; she departed after three semesters and returned to Los Angeles for film and television auditions. Early credits included the Hank Garland biopic Crazy and the unaired MTV series You Are Here, plus stage productions of Annie Get Your Gun and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ahead of her 2005 American Idol tryout.
After advancing to the final 12, McPhee’s renditions of “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” and “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” earned strong support from judges and audiences alike. In May 2006 she finished as runner-up to season-five victor Taylor Hicks. Once the show concluded, Simon Fuller’s 19 Recordings Limited label signed her and issued the single “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/My Destiny,” which climbed to number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and ranked as the second-best-selling single of that year. She subsequently joined Hicks and the other finalists on the American Idols LIVE! tour, shared stages with Bocelli, who had served as a guest judge, and contributed to his 2006 album Under the Desert Sky on a cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
Her self-titled debut album, featuring work with Nate “Danja” Hills, Chad Hugo of the Neptunes, and Kara DioGuardi, appeared in January 2007 and entered the Billboard 200 at number two; the track “Over It” later received gold certification in 2008. That March McPhee appeared on Randy Jackson’s album Randy Jackson’s Music Club, Vol. 1, duetting with fellow season-five contestant Elliott Yamin on “Real Love.” Later in 2008 she performed at a tribute concert honoring David Foster and made her feature-film acting debut in The House Bunny. A guest spot on CSI: NY followed in 2009. Her Verve Forecast debut, the album Unbroken, arrived in January 2010 and reached number 27 on the Billboard 200; the holiday set Christmas Is a Time…To Say I Love You, released that October, debuted at number 11 on the Billboard Top Holiday Albums Chart.
McPhee continued dividing her attention between screen and studio work for the remainder of the decade. In 2011 she took a central role in the NBC musical drama Smash, which lasted two seasons, and appeared in the independent films You May Not Kiss the Bride and Peace, Love & Misunderstanding. From 2014 through 2018 she portrayed Paige Dineen on the CBS series Scorpion. While the show was still running she issued the pop album Hysteria in 2015 and the Don Was-produced standards collection I Fall in Love Too Easily in 2017. Her Broadway debut came in 2018 when she played Jenna in Waitress. That May she recorded “Living in the Moment,” written by Carole Bayer Sager, Jay Landers, and Walter Afanasieff for the film Book Club. McPhee and David Foster married in June 2019.
A productive 2021 found her starring as a country singer on the short-lived Netflix series Country Comfort and competing with Foster on the sixth season of The Masked Singer. Appearing as “Banana Split,” the pair placed third behind Jewel and Todrick Hall. That same year McPhee gave birth to her first child, Rennie David Foster. The holiday EP Christmas Songs followed on Loma Vista in November 2022.
