Caroline Catz (born Caroline Caplan; 19 October 1969) is a British film, television, and theatre actress and narrator. She is best known for her role as Louisa Glasson in Doc Martin (2004–2022). Her other major roles have included Auguste van Pels in A Small Light, Detective Inspector Kate Ashurst in Murder in Suburbia, Detective Inspector Helen Morton in DCI Banks, and PC Cheryl Hutchins in The Vice.

Catz was born on 19 October 1969^[1] in Manchester to Bernard and Rosemary Caplan.

She played opposite Michael Kitchen in the TV movie The Guilty in June 1992. In 1994, she took a lead role in the BBC's All Quiet on the Preston Front, which ran for three series. She followed this with a spell in The Bill as Rosie Fox, during which she met Michael Higgs, who later became her husband. Her part in The Bill was the first of four long-term roles in which she played police officers; in The Vice she was a PC, in Murder in Suburbia and DCI Banks she was a Detective Inspector.

From 2004 to 2022, Catz starred in ITV's Doc Martin, in which she played primary school headmistress Louisa Ellingham (née Glasson).

Catz continued to appear in one-off roles, including In Denial of Murder, in which she played real-life murder victim Wendy Sewell, and in an episode of Hotel Babylon. She also appeared in a two-part episode of Single Handed, entitled The Stolen Child, as Dr Maggie Hunter. Originally shown in Ireland in January 2008, the episode was broadcast by ITV on 9 August 2009.

From 2012 until 2016, she played Detective Inspector Helen Morton in DCI Banks. In November 2016, ITV cancelled the programme.^[2][3]

In 2014, Catz directed the documentary titled A Message to the World...Whatever Happened to Jesse Hector? Also in 2014, she narrated the BBC's television documentary Ebola – The Search for a Cure.

Catz starred in the 2016 BBC One sitcom series I Want My Wife Back, playing the role of Bex.

In 2017, Catz wrote, directed, and starred in a short documentary on Delia Derbyshire, Delia Derbyshire: The Myths And The Legendary Tapes, (2017), which was screened at the BFI London Film Festival.^[4] She expanded it into a feature-length film that debuted in October 2020.^[5]

In 2018, she was the narrator on Britain's Biggest Warship, a documentary series about the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08).^[6]

Catz is married to actor Michael Higgs, whom she met on the set of The Bill. They have a son born in 2001 and a daughter born in 2006.^[11]

Television

Film