Kaitlin Olson

Kaitlin Olson carved a small niche as a minor comic actress in the first decade of the 21st Century playing a conniving foil in the highly rated ABC sitcom "The Drew Carey Show" (1995-2004,) before vaulting to the very edge of TV comedy as one of a foursome of the most narcissistic, degenerate and funny losers ever to grace American television in FX's incorrigible, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (2005- ). A painfully shy Oregon native, Olson found her voice on the stage training with The Groundlings, the storied comedy repertory that helped her to land sundry acting jobs in her first half-decade in Hollywood, including recurring roles on "Carey" and HBO favorite "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (2000- ). But was her work on the off-beat basic cable series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," as the sole female in a misbegotten foursome that put her on the map. The anti-Hollywood comedy about a peppy "Gang" of foul-mouthed, would-be cosmopolitan slackers running a Philly bar and bumbling through weekly sequences of flinch-inducing buffoonery and depraved get-rich-quick schemes was soon embraced by a rabid following for its relentless disregard for politesse and a conspicuous lack of any redemptive character traits. Made famous in one of those rare cases of unfettered creativity loosed on an unsuspecting public, Olson fashioned a distinctive pop cultural identity as a modern-day "Lucy" gone horribly, horribly wrong.