Kelly McGillis

Kelly Ann McGillis<ref name=tvg>Template:Cite web</ref> (born July 9, 1957)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> is an American actress. She is known for her film roles such as Rachel Lapp in Witness (1985), for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations; Charlie in Top Gun (1986); Made in Heaven (1987); The House on Carroll Street (1988); and as Katheryn Murphy in The Accused (1988).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In her later career, she has starred in horror films such as Stake Land (2010), The Innkeepers (2011), and We Are What We Are (2013).

Early life

McGillis was born on July 9, 1957, in the Southern California suburb of Newport Beach, the eldest of three daughters born to Virginia Joan (née Snell), a homemaker, and Donald Manson McGillis, a physician.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Her direct paternal descent is Scots-Irish, including German and Welsh ancestry.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She attended Newport Harbor High School.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

McGillis attended the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, California.<ref name="Stark 1985">Template:Cite news</ref> After dropping out of high school in 1975, she obtained her GED and then moved to New York City to study acting at the Juilliard School,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> where she graduated in 1983, Group 12.<ref name="Stark 1985" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Career

Film

After making her film debut in Reuben, Reuben<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> in 1983, McGillis's breakout role was that of an Amish mother in Witness (1985) for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA award nominations. Her next high-profile role was that of flight instructor Charlotte Blackwood (call sign "Charlie") in the 1986 fighter-pilot film Top Gun starring Tom Cruise.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

File:Kelly McGillis on the set of Witness (1984).jpg

McGillis on the set of Witness in 1984

In 1987, McGillis acted in the romance film Made in Heaven, directed by Alan Rudolph, which was produced by Lorimar Productions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

McGillis played the part of caretaker for Miss Venable (Jessica Tandy) in 1988's The House on Carroll Street, which also starred Jeff Daniels. She overhears a suspicious conversation in the house next door and suspects that she's stumbled on a conspiracy to smuggle Nazi war criminals into the United States.

After 1988's The Accused, she appeared in Cat Chaser with Peter Weller, a film she despised and which discouraged her from pursuing an acting career.<ref name="Hasted">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Davis">Template:Cite book</ref> McGillis appeared in dozens of television and film roles throughout the 1990s before taking a break from acting for a few years.

McGillis played the part of Babe Ruth's second wife, Claire Merritt Ruth, in The Babe (1992). From the late-1980s to the mid-1990s, McGillis appeared in Winter People (1989), and North (1994), her second Amish part in television or film, as well as several made-for-TV films.

In 1999, McGillis co-starred with Val Kilmer (who plays Virgil, a blind man), for a second time as his over protective sister in At First Sight.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She played the suspect in the disappearance of a young woman in The Monkey's Mask, an international lesbian cult film from 2000 starring Susie Porter. The film is based on the verse novel of the same name by Australian poet Dorothy Porter.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Television

McGillis's early television roles included a part on the daytime soap One Life to Live in 1984.

She starred in the 1984 television movie Sweet Revenge (also known as Bittersweet Revenge) with Alec Baldwin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Other television films during the 1980s included Private Sessions in 1985, and as a narrator in Santabear's First Christmas. She also narrated the documentary Out of Ireland for PBS in 1995.

Stage

While at Juilliard she performed in William Congreve's Love for Love, directed by John Bletchley.Template:Citation needed She appeared in a couple of off-broadway and Broadway theater productions during the 1980s in New York City.

During the late-1980s<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and through the mid-2000s, McGillis was a featured actress at the prestigious Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2002, she appeared in production of John Webber's play "The Duchess of Malfi" at the Shakespeare Theatre, Washington, DC.

In 2004, she appeared in the stage play The Graduate as Mrs. Robinson, touring the United States.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> McGillis starred in a Pasadena Playhouse stage production of The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman in May 2009, co-starring with Julia Duffy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Her stage work includes: Don Juan (1982), The Sea Gull (1985), Peccadillo (1985), The Merchant of Venice (1988), Twelfth Night (1989), Mary Stuart (1990), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1990), Hedda Gabler (1994), Mourning Becomes Electra (1997), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), Measure for Measure (1999) and The Graduate (2004), together with additional roles in Love for Love, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Three Sisters and The Winter's Tale.

She also appeared in a production of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally, which toured the United Kingdom in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Return to film and TV

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McGillis at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival

She began working in television again in 2006, then in 2007 joined the cast of Showtime's The L Word for its fifth season.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She had a role in the 2010 vampire film Stake Land,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> directed by Jim Mickle,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> starring alongside Nick Damici, Connor Paolo and Danielle Harris.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

McGillis was featured in a breast cancer docu-drama titled 1 a Minute, released in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She starred in Ti West's 2011 thriller The Innkeepers<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>, We Are What We Are and Tio Papi in 2013, Grand Street, Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio (which was McGillis's third Amish-themed film), Z Nation, and an episode of Sisters of Mercy in 2014, and Blue in 2015.

An Uncommon Grace on Hallmark Channel was McGillis's fourth Amish themed film<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and she had the lead role in Mother of All Secrets in 2017 as Rose Lewis.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

McGillis married fellow Juilliard student Boyd Black in 1979; the couple divorced in 1981.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the mid-1980s, she dated Warren Beatty.<ref>"Walter Scott's Personality Parade". April 7, 1985.</ref> She married Fred Tillman in 1989, and they have two daughters.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The couple divorced in 2002.

The Centurion, a 110-foot schooner valued at $1.5 million owned by McGillis and her then-husband, Fred Tillman, was destroyed by fire in April 1996 at a marina in Dania, Florida. The fire started on an adjacent boat at the Port LauDania marina on a Dania Cutoff Canal and spread to the schooner. Tillman had brought the boat from the couple's home in Key West in hopes of selling it at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

McGillis came out as a lesbian in 2009 during an interview with SheWired.<ref name="shewired">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="advocate">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2010, she entered into a civil union with Melanie Leis, a Philadelphia sales executive. They had met in 2000 when Leis was a bartender at the Caribbean Bar Grill & Brewery<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in Key West, Florida,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which McGillis owned with her then-husband.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

McGillis worked full-time with drug addicts and alcoholics at Seabrook House Drug Alcohol Rehab Center, a rehabilitation center in Bridgeton, New Jersey, when she and Leis shared a home in Collingswood.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

McGillis currently lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina. As of 2013, she has taught acting at the New York Studio for Stage and Screen (NYS3) in Asheville, North Carolina.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

2016 home invasion

McGillis was left scratched and bruised after she was assaulted by a woman who broke into her home on June 17, 2016.<ref name="Maria Puente">Template:Cite news</ref> She said the attack, as well as others which she has been a victim of in the past, led her to apply for a concealed carry permit to protect herself. Following the incident, a 38-year-old woman, Laurence Marie Dorn, was charged with second-degree burglary, misdemeanor larceny, misdemeanor stalking, assault and battery, and interfering with emergency communication.<ref name="Maria Puente" /> Later, Dorn was convicted of misdemeanor breaking and entering and sentenced to probation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Awards and nominations

Year	Association	Category	Nominated work	Result
1986	Golden Globe	Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture	Witness	Template:Nom
	BAFTA Award	Best Actress	Witness	Template:Nom
	Jupiter Award (film award)	Best International Actress	Witness	Template:Nom
	Bravo Otto	Best Actress	Top Gun	Template:Won
1987	Jupiter Award (film award)	Best International Actress	Top Gun	Template:Nom
	Bravo Otto	Best Actress	Made in Heaven	Template:Won
	Golden Ciak	Best Actress	Made in Heaven	Template:Won
1988	Bravo Otto	Best Actress	The Accused	Template:Won
1989	Jupiter Award (film award)	Best International Actress	The Accused	Template:Nom
2018	California Women’s Film Festival	Best Supporting Actress	Maternal Secrets	Template:Nom
	Southampton International Film Festival	Supporting Actress in a Feature	Maternal Secrets	Template:Nom

External links

• Template:IMDb name
• Kelly McGillis on IBDB (Internet Broadway Database)
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• Template:Rotten Tomatoes person