Tough but vulnerable, hardheaded but secretly romantic that's Major Kira Nerys, the DS9 character portrayed
by actress Nana Visitor. It's been a long strange trip for Visitor she can recall watching reruns of classic ST in
her youth, and her discover, while working on a play in Boston, that there was a ST convention going on in town.

How did she do it? The same way most people in the performing arts did: by paying her dues. At least she
started early. Born on the West Side of New York City, Nana Visitor grew up in and around the theater
thanks to her performing family. Her mother was a ballet teacher in charge of a dance studio in New York;
her father choreographed many successful Broadway musicals. In fact he met Nana's mother as one of her
students.

By the age of seven, Nana was studying ballet at the dance studio her mother ran, and by age 14 she was in her
high school musicals. She had the opportunity to attend college at Princeton, but Visitor turned it down to be a
chorus girl in a stage musical. She never regretted this decision, because she soon found regular work at her
chosen craft.

Visitor appeared in productions of Gypsy with Angela Lansburry, My One And Only, 42nd Street, A Musical
jubilee, and The Ladies Room. As a young actress she secured an early film role in the 1977 film The Sentinel,
a horror movie filmed in New York City. Before moving to Los Angeles, Visitor had regular roles on the New York
based soap operas Ryan's hope and One life to live.

When Visitor auditioned for the role of Major Kira, she concentrated on the great pain in the character's life a pain
born of watching her people brutalized by decades of foreign occupation. To find that pain in her own life, Visitor
drew on her own experience of childbirth. "So I went out the morning and I got a pair of Doc Martens, and I put t
hem on and felt like Major Kira. I felt like I'd just been through mud and rolled around and fought people and gotten
a few Cardassians. Then I got there, I threw open the door, did two scenes, and left! I did the same thing for
Paramount when I went back."

During DS9 off-season, Nana Visitor spended time with her husband Nick and her child, who she calls Buster.
Before the apparent break up that is. After she'd been working on DS9 a few months she started bringing her baby
to the studio with her so that she could spend more time with him. She enjoys going to ST conventions and
meeting fans. Nana is perfectly willing to sign autographs and if it takes three hours for everyone to get an
autograph, then she'll sign for three hours. And she's not interested in hurrying people along. She likes to meet
them, look into their eyes and make a connection. To her the fans are what makes ST an enduring hit. Nana is
now married to .."Alexander Siddig" with whom she has a child...bells rang on June 15 '97 Visitor and Alexander
Siddig, reside in Los Angeles.