Martha Logan is a fictional character played by Jean Smart in the television series, 24. As the first lady of the United States within the 24 universe, she is the capable but unpredictable and unstable wife of President Charles Logan. Critics praised Martha Logan as the breakout character of the show's Emmy Award winning 2006 season.
In developing Martha Logan's character, the show's writers drew upon the historic example of a prominent whistleblower in the Watergate scandal, Martha Mitchell. Similar to the real life model, Martha Logan becomes contemptuous of her husband's conduct in office and decides to go public and end his career. Martha Logan takes part in a plot to get her husband to confess that he conspired with terrorists. Yet her mental health problems undermine her credibility and raise the possibility that she may be forced into treatment at an inpatient facility. After the events of the fifth season she was committed to a mental health facility.
Read more about Martha Logan: Concept and Creation, Characterization, Critical Reception
Famous quotes containing the words martha and/or logan:
“You’ve strung your breasts
with a rattling rope of pearls,
tied a jangling belt
around those deadly hips
and clinking jewelled anklets
on both your feet.
So, stupid,
if you run off to your lover like this,
banging all these drums,
then why
do you shudder with all this fear
and look up, down;
in every direction?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.?, Kashmirian king, compiler, author of some of the poems in the anthology which bears his name. translated from the Amaruataka by Martha Ann Selby, vs. 31, Motilal Banarsidass (1983)
“I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.”
—Karen Logan (b. 1949)