The younger of two girls born in Los Angeles to parents Stanley Fielding, an accountant, and Frances Halbach, a housewife. Cathy lived in Reno, Nevada from the age of three to eleven, at which time the family returned to Los Angeles. After graduating Alexander Hamilton High School in she enrolled at Santa Monica City College with a dual-major of theater and science. Theater won out, so she continued training at Cal State Northridge and UCLA. She performed in regional theater and a few films. As Life so often does, it threw Cathy a curve ball, so she reluctantly left the acting world and became a corporate travel agent, where she remained for twenty years, during which time she married and had two children. In the Fall of 2009 she made the decision to return to her first love, and hasn't looked back since.