Early life

Kelly was born in Queens, New York, a daughter of Irish immigrants. Her father, Peter, was trained as a concert violinist, and her mother, Anne, is a nurse. Kelly is the third of six children and was raised in Ronkonkoma. She was brought up as a Catholic. Kelly attended Connetquot Senior High School in Bohemia, Long Island, graduating in the class of 1986. Later, she attended Marymount Manhattan College.

In her youth, Kelly was cast in a small role in her high school's 1984 production of Annie. Due to illness, the girl playing Miss Hannigan was replaced, causing a series of cast changes leading to her choice of career. A faithful Catholic, Kelly had to decide between acting and her childhood ambition of becoming a nun.

Career

Kelly made her professional acting debut in the made-for-TV movie Love, Lies and Murder, playing as a teenage murderer. She went on to have small roles in the films The Boy Who Cried Bitch and Billy Bathgate before being cast as Donna Hayward in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. For that film, she went home and got permission from her priest because of an explicit sex scene. In the same year, she starred opposite D. B. Sweeney in the romantic comedy The Cutting Edge and played two roles opposite Robert Downey, Jr. in Chaplin. According to a TV Guide interview, before taking on her role in Daybreak, Kelly once again asked her priest for advice: "Being a Catholic, I wondered if it would be against my religion to play a girl who has premarital sex." The priest told her "it was okay, as long as my artistic intentions were true and I wasn't doing it for the notoriety or the money."

She has since appeared in the movies With Honors, Little Odessa, The Tie That Binds and Dangerous Beauty amongst others, and provided the adult voice of Nala in Disney's The Lion King, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, and The Lion King 1½. In her independent film career, Kelly had the starring role of activist Dorothy Day in Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story and starred alongside Glenn Close in The Safety of Objects. She played Helen Keller in the made-for-TV movie Monday After the Miracle, which broadcast on November 15, 1998, on CBS.

Kelly starred in the CBS drama To Have & to Hold opposite Jason Beghe before playing Mandy Hampton in the first season of The West Wing. In 2003, Kelly began playing single mother Karen Roe on the teen drama One Tree Hill. She also directed two episodes of the series: "Resolve" (2007) and "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me" (2006). In the fifth season, she ceased to be a regular cast member, but made guest appearances in the 100th episode and the sixth season finale. She has made guest appearances in television shows such as Heroes, Law & Order, and Numb3rs. Kelly has also appeared in the films Remember the Daze, A Smile as Big as the Moon and Taken Back: Finding Haley.

Personal life

In 2000, Moira Kelly married Steve Hewitt, a Texas businessman. They have two children: son Eamon (born 2003) and daughter Ella (born 2001).

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	The Boy Who Cried Bitch	Jessica
	Love, Lies and Murder	Cinnamon	TV movie
	Billy Bathgate	Rebecca
1992	Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me	Donna Hayward
	The Cutting Edge	Kate Moseley
	Chaplin	Hetty Kelly / Oona O'Neill
1993	Daybreak	Blue	TV Movie
1994	The Lion King	Adult Nala	Voice Only
	With Honors	Courtney Blumenthal
1995	Little Odessa	Alla Shustervich
1996	Unhook the Stars	Ann Mary Margaret
	Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story	Dorothy Day
1997	Drive, She Said	Nadine Ship
1998	To Have & to Hold	Annie Cornell	TV Series: 13 Episodes
	Love Walked In	Vera
	The Lion King II: Simba's Pride	Nala	Voice Only
	Dangerous Beauty	Beatrice
1999-2000	The West Wing	Mandy Hampton	TV Series: 22 Episodes
1999	Henry Hill	Cynthia
2002	The Twilight Zone	Elizabeth Carter / Bess Wicker	TV Series: Episode: "Found and Lost"
	Hack	Vanessa Griffin	TV Series: 1 Episode
2003	The Safety of Objects	Susan Train
2003-2009	One Tree Hill	Karen Roe	TV Series: 90 Episodes
2004	The Lion King 1½	Adult Nala	Voice Only
2006	Two Tickets to Paradise	Kate
2007	Remember The Daze	Mrs. Ford	Alternative Title: The Beautiful Ordinary
2008	Law & Order	Catherine Donovan	TV Series: 1 Episode
2009	Heroes	Abby Collins	TV Series: 1 Episode: "Building 26"
2010	Numb3rs	Mary Paulson	TV Series: 1 Episode
2012	A Smile as Big as the Moon	Darcy Kersjes	TV Movie
	Taken Back: Finding Haley	Karen	TV Movie
2013	Drop Dead Diva	Cindy Kasper	TV Series: 1 Episode

[ Source: Wikipedia ]