Dawber attended North Farmington High School and Oakland Community College. She began her career as a fashion model with Wilhelmina Models and went on to a career as an actress. From 1978 to 1982, she played one of the title roles in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy: Mindy McConnell, the comedic foil and eventual love interest for the extraterrestrial Mork from the planet “Ork”, played by Robin Williams. (In the 1992 movie Stay Tuned, Dawber would parody her Mork & Mindy character, starring with John Ritter, who would parody his Three’s Company role.) From 1986 to 1988, Dawber again had the title role in a series, playing Samantha Russell in the CBS sitcom My Sister Sam; her co-star, Rebecca Schaeffer, was murdered a year later.
Dawber has a four-octave soprano voice. She featured as Mabel, in a Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production (based on the Joseph Papp/New York Shakespeare Festival production) of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.
Dawber is a national spokeswoman for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.
[edit] Personal life
She has been married to actor Mark Harmon since March 21, 1987. The couple have two sons: Sean Thomas Harmon (born April 25th, 1988) 20, a college student and Ty Christian Harmon (born June 25th, 1992) who’s 16 and still in high school.[1]
as Chico Marx once said, when his young lady music student said....
“I have a falsetto voice.”
Chico then says, “Well, my last student had a false set of teeth.”