Ally Sheedy facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ally Sheedy
Sheedy in 2011
Born	Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy (1962-06-13) June 13, 1962 (age 62) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1975–present
Spouse(s)	David Lansbury ​ ​ (m. 1992; div. 2009)​
Children	1

Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American actress. She made her feature film debut in Bad Boys (1983) and came to prominence as a member of the Brat Pack with roles in Oxford Blues (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), and Blue City (1986). She received three Saturn Award nominations for Best Actress for her performances in WarGames (1983), Fear (1990), and Man's Best Friend (1993). For her performance in High Art (1998), Sheedy won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She also starred in the films Twice in a Lifetime (1985), Short Circuit (1986), Betsy's Wedding (1990), Only the Lonely (1991), and Life During Wartime (2009), as well as the series Single ... Female (2022–2023).

Early life

Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy was born in New York City on June 13, 1962, and has a brother and a sister. Her mother, Charlotte (née Baum), is a writer and press agent who was involved in women's and civil rights movements, and her father, John J. Sheedy Jr., is a Manhattan advertising executive. Sheedy's mother is Eastern European Jewish, and her father is of Irish Catholic background. Her maternal grandmother was from Odesa, Ukraine. Her parents divorced in 1971.

She attended the Bank Street School for Children, followed by Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School in New York City, graduating in 1980. She started dancing with the American Ballet Theatre at age six and was planning to make it a full-time career. She gave up dance in favor of acting full time, however, and then started studying with acting teacher Harold Guskin. At age 12 she wrote a book, She Was Nice to Mice, which was published by McGraw-Hill Education and became a best-seller. The story was released in 1976 as a spoken word album on the Caedmon label (TC 1506). On June 19, 1975, she appeared on the game show To Tell the Truth.

At age 18, Sheedy relocated to Los Angeles, California, where she enrolled in the drama department at the University of Southern California. Sheedy concurrently began her acting career and intermittently completed three years' worth of courses toward a BFA degree in acting.

Career

Sheedy started acting in local stage productions as a teenager. After appearing in several television films in 1981, as well as three episodes of the television series Hill Street Blues, she made her feature film debut in Bad Boys (1983), starring Sean Penn, wherein she played Penn's humiliated girlfriend. During the 1980s, she became a member of the Brat Pack, and had roles in popular films such as WarGames (1983, earning her first Saturn Award nomination), Oxford Blues (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), St. Elmo's Fire (1986), Twice in a Lifetime (1985), Blue City (1986), Short Circuit (1986), and Maid to Order (1987).

In the 1990s, Sheedy appeared in films such as Fear (1990), Betsy's Wedding (1990), Only the Lonely (1991), and Man's Best Friend (1993). Fear and Man's Best Friend earned her two more Saturn Award nominations for Best Actress. Sheedy starred alongside Radha Mitchell in the 1998 independent film High Art, about a romance between two women and the power of art. Her performance in High Art was recognized with awards from the Independent Spirit Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and National Society of Film Critics.

In 1999, Sheedy took over the lead role in the off-Broadway production of the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She was the first cis-gender female to play the part of the genderqueer Hedwig, but her run ended early amid "mixed" reviews. That same year, she was cast as a lead actress in Sugar Town, an independent film that featured an ensemble cast of actors and musicians.

She was reunited with Breakfast Club co-star Anthony Michael Hall when she became a special guest star on his television show The Dead Zone, in the second-season episode "Playing God", from 2003.

Sheedy has also appeared in the 2007 episode "Leapin' Lizards" of C.S.I.. On March 3, 2008, Sheedy was introduced as the character Sarah in the ABC Family show Kyle XY. In 2009, she played the role of Mr. Yang on the USA Network television show Psych (in the third-season finale), a role that she reprised in the fourth season, fifth season, and seventh season finales.

As of 2021, Sheedy has been a professor in the theater department at the City College of New York of the City University of New York in the Hamilton Heights section of New York City. She was on an episode of GMA3: What You Need to Know on WABC-TV on May 10, 2023.

Personal life

Ally Sheedy and her mother, Charlotte in Beverly Hills California, 1975

Sheedy became a vegetarian at the age of 12.

Sheedy dated Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi's guitarist, for less than a year in the 1980s.

On April 12, 1992, Sheedy married actor David Lansbury, the nephew of actress Angela Lansbury and son of Edgar Lansbury. They have a son, Beckett, born in 1994. In 2008, Sheedy announced that she and Lansbury had filed for divorce.

Filmography

Film

Television

Awards and nominations

Sheedy with a 2002 Peabody Award for The Interrogation of Michael Crowe.

Books

• She Was Nice to Mice, McGraw-Hill, 1975, ISBN: 0-440-47844-8
• Yesterday I Saw the Sun: Poems, Summit Books, 1991, ISBN: 0-671-73130-0

See also

In Spanish: Ally Sheedy para niños