Early life

Sheridan was born in Worthing, Sussex, England, the daughter of actress Sally Sheridan (née Adams; born 1947) who gave birth to Nicollette at age 16. She attended school at Millfield in Somerset. In 1969 her mother began an affair with Greek-American actor Telly Savalas while working with him on the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. After completion of shooting, Savalas moved the entire family to the United States. Her mother gave birth to a son, Nicholas Savalas, on 24 February 1973. Telly Savalas and Sally Sheridan separated in 1977, and the family split their time between the US and Britain.

Career

Sheridan began her career as a fashion model, appearing in the pages of Vogue and on the cover of Cosmopolitan, shot by Francesco Scavullo as well as the German edition.

Sheridan made her acting debut in 1984 in the short-lived US primetime soap opera Paper Dolls, which co-starred Lloyd Bridges and Morgan Fairchild. However, her breakthrough came in 1986 when she joined the cast of the CBS primetime soap Knots Landing as Paige Matheson. She started in a recurring role but had become a series regular by the 1988-89 season. Sheridan remained with the series for seven seasons until its end in 1993, and for her performance in the role she won the 1990 Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Lead Actress: Prime Time and the 1991 Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Heroine: Prime Time. The same year, she was named one of People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People". In 1990, she was cast as Lucky Santangelo in the television adaptation of Jackie Collins' Lucky Chances. She also appeared in several made-for-TV films, and after Knots Landing ended in 1993, she appeared in the theatrical films Spy Hard and Beverly Hills Ninja. In 1998, she auditioned for the role of Grace Adler on Will & Grace, though the role ultimately went to Debra Messing. However, Sheridan did make a guest appearance on the show in 2003.

In 2004, Sheridan was cast as Edie Britt in the ABC comedy-drama series Desperate Housewives. On 15 November 2004, Sheridan (in character as Britt) appeared with NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens in an introductory skit to that evening's Monday Night Football episode. Some observers condemned the skit as sexually suggestive (see video), and ABC later apologized for airing it. On 14 March 2005, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that the skit did not violate decency standards, because it contained no outright nudity or foul language. Sheridan was nominated for a 2005 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was ranked #48 on Maxim's 2006 Hot 100 List. In February 2009, during the show's fifth season, Sheridan announced her departure from Desperate Housewives. Her exit episode aired in April 2009 when Edie Britt was killed off. Unlike the other main characters who had been killed off over the years on Desperate Housewives, Sheridan did not make an appearance in the show's final episode which aired in May 2012.

In 2010, Sheridan was cast in an untitled CBS comedy pilot as a mother who battles with her British ex-husband to get her teenaged daughter to stardom, but the show was not picked up. In September 2010, Sheridan starred in the Hallmark Channel film, Honeymoon for One, which was set in Ireland. The film premiered on the Hallmark Channel on 13 August 2011. In 2013, she starred and co-produced another Hallmark movie, called The Christmas Spirit. In an interview in November 2013, Sheridan announced that she was hoping to find a network for a half-hour comedy series that she is currently writing herself.

Personal life

Relationships

From 1979 to 1985, Sheridan dated singer and actor Leif Garrett. Two decades later, Garrett credited Sheridan for helping him at the start of his career, and said of her "She's a special person in my life." Sheridan was married to actor Harry Hamlin from 1991 to 1993. The pair had starred together in the 1990 TV movie Deceptions.

She began seeing Swedish personal trainer Nicklas Söderblom in 2004 and became engaged to him on New Year's Eve 2004; the pair called off the engagement in October 2005.

After her 2005 break-up with Söderblom, Sheridan returned to ex-boyfriend Michael Bolton, whom she had originally dated for five years starting in 1992. Sheridan and Bolton announced their engagement in March 2006. In 2006, Sheridan and Bolton sang a duet, "The Second Time Around", for the album Bolton Swings Sinatra. In March 2008, Sheridan posed nude for a London Fog charity ad which also featured Bolton. Sheridan and Bolton broke off their engagement in August 2008.

Lawsuit

In April 2010, Sheridan filed a $20 million lawsuit against Desperate Housewives creator/producer Marc Cherry and ABC Television, alleging that she was assaulted by Cherry on the set of the show and was then fired when she reported the alleged abuse to the network. In her lawsuit, Sheridan claimed wrongful termination, assault and battery, gender violence, discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and age, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She also alleged that Cherry was abusive to other cast members and writers. ABC responded by stating that while they were unaware of this particular complaint, they had investigated similar claims made by Sheridan and reportedly found them to be without merit. The show's stars, Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria, pledged their support to help Cherry in his battle against Sheridan's allegations.

In May 2011, a judge granted permission for the case to continue to trial, but threw out Sheridan's claims of harassment. The case finally went to court on 27 February 2012. Cherry asserted that the alleged assault was in fact a tap to the head with his fingers, done in rehearsals when he was demonstrating to Sheridan how she should play a physical gag in a scene. He also stated that the decision to kill off her character was already approved in May 2008 (several months before the alleged hitting incident in September 2008) due, in part, to the need to reduce the show's budget. He also cited Sheridan's unprofessional on-set behavior (such as habitual lateness, not learning her lines, and feuding with her co-stars), and the fact that her character had simply "run its course" as other reasons for the decision. On 13 March 2012, the judge dismissed the battery charge against Cherry due to lack of evidence, and the lawsuit then focused solely on Sheridan's alleged wrongful termination by ABC. Closing arguments were heard on 14 March 2012 and the jury began their deliberations. By 19 March 2012, the twelve members of the jury had failed to reach a verdict and a mistrial was declared. A retrial was scheduled for September 2012, but this was dismissed in August when the Los Angeles Court of Appeal determined that Sheridan had not been wrongfully fired. The court rejected Sheridan's argument that ABC’s decision not to renew her option for another season was analogous to a violation of at-will employment. The court reasoned that unlike an at-will employee whose contract could remain in force indefinitely, Sheridan’s contract was for a set term that had expired and therefore ABC had not terminated her but simply chosen not to rehire her for another fixed-term contract. However, the court declared that Sheridan was free to file an amended lawsuit alleging that ABC retaliated against her for complaining about unsafe working conditions. A further appeal made by Sheridan to the California Supreme Court was rejected in November 2012, A new trial based solely on the retaliation claim was set for December 2013, but this too was dismissed in October 2013 by a judge who stated that Sheridan should have exhausted her claims through a labor commissioner before pursuing a trial. A further attempt by Sheridan to secure a new trial was refused on 16 January 2014, however the same judge reversed his decision on 29 January 2014 and granted Sheridan a new trial. In a further twist, this decision was later reversed in August 2014 by the Los Angeles Court of Appeal who found the judge's decision to grant Sheridan a new trial was in error.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	The Sure Thing	The Sure Thing
1989	Dirty Tennis	Herself	Direct-to-video short film with Dick Van Patten
1992	Noises Off	Brooke Ashton/Vicki
1996	Spy Hard	Veronique Ukrinsky, Agent 3.14
1997	Beverly Hills Ninja	Allison Page/Sally Jones
1998	I Woke Up Early The Day I Died	Ballroom Woman	Cameo
2000	Raw Nerve	Izabel Sauvestre
2002	.com for Murder	Misty Brummel	Direct-to-video
2002	Tarzan & Jane	Eleanor	Direct-to-video, Voice
2003	Lost Treasure	Carrie	Direct-to-video
2007	Code Name: The Cleaner	Diane
2008	Fly Me to the Moon	Nadia	Voice
2011	Noah's Ark: The New Beginning	Zenna	Direct-to-video, Voice
2011	XXIT	Nikki Williams	Short film
2012	Jewtopia	Betsy O'Connell
2014	Let's Kill Ward's Wife	Robin Peters	Cameo

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Paper Dolls	Taryn Blake	13 episodes
1986-1993	Knots Landing	Paige Matheson	Series regular, 181 episodes Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Heroine - Prime Time
1986	Dead Man's Folly	Hattie Stubbs	TV movie
1986	Dark Mansions	Banda Drake	TV movie
1990	Deceptions	Adrienne Erickson	TV movie
1990	Lucky/Chances	Lucky Santangelo	TV mini-series
1992	Somebody's Daughter	Sara	TV movie
1991	Paradise	Lily	Episode: "Twenty-Four Hours"
1994	A Time to Heal	Jenny Barton	TV movie
1994	Shadows of Desire	Rowena Ecklund	TV movie
1995	Virus	Marissa Blumenthal	TV movie
1995	Indictment: The McMartin Trial	Grace	TV movie, uncredited
1995	Silver Strand	Michelle Hughes	TV movie
1996	The People Next Door	Anna Morse	TV movie
1997	Murder in My Mind	Callain Pearson	TV movie
1997	Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac	Paige Matheson	TV mini-series, uncredited
1998	Dead Husbands	Alexandra Elston	TV movie
2000	The Spiral Staircase	Helen Capel	TV movie
2001	The Legend of Tarzan	Eleanor	26 episodes
2003	Static Shock	Darcy/Miss Moore	Episode: "Toys in the Hood"
2002	Haven't We Met Before?	Eliza/Kate/Emily Winton	TV movie
2003	Deadly Betrayal	Donna Randal	TV movie
2003	Will & Grace	Dr. Danielle Morty	Episode: "24"
2003	Becker	Anna	Episode: "A First Class Flight"
2004	Deadly Visions	Ann Culver	TV movie
2004	The Karate Dog	White Cat	TV movie
2004-2009	Desperate Housewives	Edie Britt	Series regular, Main Role 92 episodes (Season 1-5) Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film (2005)
2011	Honeymoon for One	Eve Parker	TV movie
2013	The Christmas Spirit	Charlotte Hart	TV movie, also executive producer and co-wrote the story

Charities

Nicollette Sheridan supports the following charitable causes: Underprivileged Children, Cancer, Diabetes, Gay Rights, Children.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]