Stacy Warner

Stacy Warner is a fictional recurring character portrayed by Sela Ward on the Fox Broadcasting Company's medical drama House. She was in a relationship with Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), when he suffered an infarction in his right leg during a game of golf. This was caused by a clotted aneurysm in his thigh, which had led to an infarction that caused his quadriceps muscle to become necrotic. Regarding House's treatment, Stacy acted against House's wishes when he was put into a chemically induced coma. She authorized a safer surgical middle-ground procedure by removing just the dead muscle, leaving House with a lesser, but serious, level of pain for the rest of his life. House could not forgive her and they broke up. The two meet again, five years later, at the end of season one; Stacy wants House to treat her husband, Mark. House correctly diagnoses Mark with acute intermittent porphyria, and so he has to remain at the hospital for close monitoring. Stacy becomes the hospital's lawyer, and she and House grow closer together. When she is ultimately willing to leave Mark for him, House tells her to go back to Mark, which devastates her and causes her and Mark to leave the city.

When the writers of the show wrote "Three Stories", the first episode in which Stacy appeared, the first name they came up with to play the character was Sela Ward. Although Ward was not initially interested in portraying Stacy, she changed her mind after watching tapes of the show. While she was originally hired to appear in only two episodes of the first season, the chemistry between Ward and Laurie was strong enough to have her appear in seven more second season episodes. She also appeared in the House finale Everybody Dies. Stacy was received mostly positive by critics who considered her arc a "juicy subplot".