Early

Kelly McGillis was born July 9, 1957, in Newport Beach, California, the daughter of Virginia Joan (née Snell), a homemaker, and Dr. Donald Manson McGillis, a general practitioner of medicine.

McGillis was raised in Los Angeles, and attended the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria, California. After graduating high school in 1979, she moved to New York City to study acting at the Juilliard School, where she graduated in 1983. While at Juilliard she performed in William Congreve's Love for Love, directed by John Bletchley.

Career

Her breakout role was that of an Amish mother in the 1985 film Witness with Harrison Ford, for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA award nominations. Her next high-profile role was that of flight instructor Charlie in the 1986 fighter-pilot film Top Gun with Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer. 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. McGillis appeared in dozens of television and film roles throughout the 1990s before taking a break from acting for a few years.

In 1992, Ms. McGillis plays a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl who becomes Babe Ruth's (played by John Goodman) second wife. She prepared for the role by reading Billie Burke's autobiography about her career with the Follies, "With a Feather on My Nose".

The featured actor has always, however, had a love of the stage, which was nurtured by her years at Juilliard. Since her graduation, McGillis has found time on a regular basis to perform live theatre - classics by Chekov, Shaw, Ibsen, Shakespeare and O’Neill. She has often appeared in starring roles with the prestigious Shakespeare Theatre of Washington, DC.

In 2004, she appeared in the stage play The Graduate as Mrs. Robinson, touring the United States. She began working in television again in 2006, then in 2007, she joined the cast of Showtime's The L Word for its fifth season. McGillis starred in a Pasadena Playhouse stage production of Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman in May 2009, co-starring with Julia Duffy.

She had a role in the 2010 vampire film Stake Land, directed by Jim Mickle. She stars alongside Nick Damici, Connor Paolo and Danielle Harris. McGillis was featured in a breast cancer docu-drama titled 1 a Minute, released in 2010. 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. She starred in Ti West's 2011 thriller Innkeepers.

Personal life

McGillis married Boyd Black in 1979. They divorced in 1981.

In February 1982, McGillis and her live-in girlfriend were assaulted, verbally abused, and raped at knifepoint by two men who broke into their New York apartment. One of the rapists was 15-year-old Leroy Johnson, who was on the run from juvenile detention. This experience encouraged the actress to pursue her film role as the lawyer who supports Jodie Foster's character in The Accused.

She married Fred Tillman in 1989, and they have two daughters: Kelsey and Sonora. The couple divorced in 2002. She also has four grandchildren.

McGillis came out as a lesbian in April 2009 during an interview with SheWired. McGillis said that coming to terms with her sexual orientation has been an ongoing process since age 12, and she was long convinced that God was punishing her for being homosexual with the aforementioned rape incident. In 2010, McGillis entered into a civil union with Melanie Leis, a Philadelphia-based sales executive; she and McGillis met in 2000 when Leis was a bartender at the Kellys' Caribbean Bar Grill & Brewery in Key West, Florida, which McGillis owned with her then-husband Fred Tillman. Leis and McGillis broke up in 2011.

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.

McGillis currently lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina. She teaches acting at The New York Studio for Stage and Screen: NYS3 in Asheville, North Carolina.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Reuben, Reuben	Geneva Spofford
1985	Witness	Rachel
1986	Top Gun	Charlotte Blackwood
1987	Unsettled Land	Anda
1987	Made in Heaven	Annie Packert / Ally Chandler
1988	House on Carroll Street, TheThe House on Carroll Street	Emily
1988	Accused, TheThe Accused	Kathryn Murphy
1989	Rabbit Ears: Thumbelina	Storyteller	Video short
1989	Winter People	Collie Wright
1989	Cat Chaser	Mary DeBoya
1991	Grand Isle	Edna Pontellier
1992	Babe, TheThe Babe	Claire Hodgson Ruth
1994	North	Amish Mom
1998	Painted Angels	Nettie
1998	Ground Control	Susan Stratton
1999	At First Sight	Jennie Adamson
1999	Settlement, TheThe Settlement	Ellie / Fake Barbara
2000	Monkey's Mask, TheThe Monkey's Mask	Prof. Diana Maitland
2001	No One Can Hear You	Trish Burchall
2001	Morgan's Ferry	Vonnie Carpenter
2007	Supergator	Kim Taft	Video
2010	Stake Land	Sister
2011	What Could Have Been	Margaret
2011	Innkeepers, TheThe Innkeepers	Leanne Rease-Jones
2013	We Are What We Are	Marge
2013	Tio Papi	Elizabeth Warden
2013	Grand Street	Isabelle	Post-production
2015	Blue	Ms. Hutcherson

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Sweet Revenge	Katherine Dennison Breen	TV film
1984	One Life to Live	Glenda Livingston	TV series
1985	Live from the Lincoln Center	Host	Episode: "Juilliard at 80"
1985	Private Sessions	Jennifer Clles	TV film
1986	Santabear's First Christmas	Narrator (voice)	TV film
1987	Santabear's High Flying Adventure	Missy Bear (voice)	TV short
1992	Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Framing	Mrs. Winston Hope	TV film
1993	Bonds of Love	Rose Parks	TV film
1994	In the Best of Families: Marriage, Pride & Madness	Susie Lynch	TV film
1995	Dark Eyes	Mila McGann	Episode: "Pilot"
1995	Remember Me	Menly Nichols	TV film
1996	We the Jury	Alyce Bell	TV film
1997	Third Twin, TheThe Third Twin	Dr. Jean "Jeannie" Ferrami	TV film
1998	Storm Chasers: Revenge of the Twister	Jamie Marshall	TV film
1998	Perfect Prey	Audrey Macleah	TV film
2000	Wild Thornberrys, TheThe Wild Thornberrys	Winema (voice)	Episode: "Pack of Thornberrys"
2000	Outer Limits, TheThe Outer Limits	Nicole Whitley	Episode: "Final Appeal"
2000	Buzz Lightyear of Star Command	Gorgeous Woman (voice)	Episode: "Planet of the Lost"
2006	Cold Shoulder		TV film
2006	Black Widower	Nancy Westveld	TV film
2008	L Word, TheThe L Word	Col. Gillian Davis	Episodes: "Lesbians Gone Wild", "Lay Down the Law"
2014	Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio	Bertha Troyler	TV film
2014	Z Nation	Helen	Episode: "Sisters of Mercy"

[ Source: Wikipedia ]