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Catherine Willows is a fictional character, portrayed by Marg Helgenberger, from the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its sequel, CSI: Vegas. Helgenberger made her franchise debut in the first-season episode "Pilot". Helgenberger received several award nominations for her portrayal of Catherine, including two Primetime Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe Award nominations.

On March 16, 2000, Raymond A. Edel from The Record reported that actress Marg Helgenberger had been cast in the pilot episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, a drama that centers on Las Vegas crime scene investigators. Helgenberger's character was billed as "a stripper-turned-investigator who is also a single mom".

The character of Catherine is based on real-life forensics officer Yolanda McClary of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. Helgenberger met with McClary and talked about her job in forensics in preparation for the role. The actress stated that McClary helped her understand why she enjoyed working the job. Starting in 2013, McClary appeared prominently on Cold Justice, a reality series devoted to reexamination of unsolved cold case murders usually alongside small-town police who have limited investigative resources.

Helgenberger announced her departure in 2011, with Catherine making her last appearance in the twelfth season episode "Willows in the Wind", which aired on January 25, 2012. In August 2013, it was announced that Helgenberger would make a guest appearance in the show's 300th episode "Frame by Frame". Catherine appeared in a series of newly recorded flashbacks to a case that occurred in the timeframe of the first season.

Series regular

In the first eleven seasons, Helgenberger appeared in all but six episodes: "Random Acts of Violence" in season three, "Hollywood Brass" and "Committed" in season five, and "House of Hoarders," "All That Cremains," and "Unleashed" in season eleven. She also appeared in the first twelve episodes of season twelve before departing the main cast. She is part of the main cast for the second and third seasons of the sequel series, CSI: Vegas.

Guest star

Helgenberger appeared as a guest star in the season fourteen episode "Frame by Frame", before returning for the feature length finale "Immortality".

Catherine Willows was raised by her single mother, Lily Flynn, a cocktail waitress and showgirl. Due to the nature of her mother's jobs, Catherine was constantly moved around the West Coast of America as a child, and because of this, she found it difficult to settle in school. Consequently, she failed to excel to her full potential in school, despite her high intelligence and razor-sharp mind. Catherine left school and began work as an exotic dancer in order to support her boyfriend's music career. She became interested in police work when she befriended a regular at the dance club, Detective Tadero, who also encouraged her to return to school. She attended West Las Vegas University, where she graduated with a degree in Medical Science. Catherine joined the CSI team at LVPD as a lab technician, after which she worked her way up to the role of supervisor under the watchful eye of Gil Grissom.

Catherine has one daughter, Lindsey Willows (originally played by Madison McReynolds, then played by Kay Panabaker, and finally played by Katie Stevens in the series finale), who frequently appears in episodes of CSI. Lindsey's father and Catherine's ex-husband, Eddie Willows (Timothy Carhart), also falls into storylines before being murdered. Catherine also discovers that her absent father was, in fact, her old family friend and big casino boss, Sam Braun (Scott Wilson). After coming to terms with the revelation, she lost Braun when he was gunned down.

In Season 10, Catherine began a relationship with LVPD Detective Vartann (Alex Carter). It was revealed in season 11 that Sam Braun had left her a portion of his casino business in his will. She also had a best friend Laura Gabriel (who, in "Willows in the Wind", is revealed to be the person behind all the killings) whom she met up with in the episode "Zippered".

After Catherine's friend is killed (which is revealed to have been staged by Laura and a former FBI agent in "Willows in the Wind") along with four FBI agents, Russell receives an e-mail apparently from her saying that she wants to resign. She is then shot in her home, although she is able to escape with the help of Russell. In the following episode (in which it is revealed the resignation e-mail was fake), she and Russell make it through the firefight, and she is covertly nursed back to health by Doc Robbins with help from others, including the son of Catherine's former boss at the strip club.

The character's original CBS biography (which has since been removed) stated that she was born in Bozeman, Montana on March 26, 1963, and raised by her mother, Lily Flynn (Anita Gillette), a former show girl ("Weeping Willows", "Kiss-Kiss, Bye-Bye"). This biography was later revised. The new version states that the character was born in Las Vegas and raised by her single mother, who worked as a cocktail waitress and showgirl at various jobs along the West Coast.

The seventh-season episode "Living Legend" established that Willows was 16 years old (portrayed by Amy Scott) in 1975, the year the movie Jaws was released, which places her year of birth in either 1958 or 1959. She had occasional contact with her biological father, casino owner Sam Braun, but knew him only as a family friend. Sam Braun nicknamed her "Muggs". She did not learn he had fathered her until she was an adult and compared his DNA sample with her own as part of a murder investigation in the episode "Inside the Box". Willows herself worked for a time as a dancer/stripper and briefly had a cocaine habit, dropping it before pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology from UNLV. Like the other characters on CSI, she has a wide knowledge of odd facts that help in their investigations of crime scenes.