Alexandra Elizabeth "Ally" Sheedy (born June 13,
1962) is an American film and stage actress, as well as the author
of two books. She is known for her roles in the
Brat Pack films
The Breakfast Club and
St. Elmo's Fire.
Early life
Sheedy was
born in New York
City
and has two siblings, Patrick and Meghan.
Her mother, Charlotte (
née
Baum), was a writer and press agent who was involved in
women's and
civil
rights movements, and her father, John J.
Sheedy, Jr., was a
Manhattan
-based advertising executive. Ally Sheedy's
mother was
Jewish and her father was of
Irish Catholic descent. Her parents divorced
in 1971.
Sheedy attended
Columbia Grammar and
Preparatory School in New York City, graduating in 1980. She
started dancing with the
American Ballet Theatre at the age
of six, and was planning on making it a full-time career. She gave
up dance in favor of acting full-time. At twelve years old, she
wrote a children's book,
She
Was Nice to Mice; the book was published by
McGraw-Hill and became a best-seller. On June
19, 1975, she appeared on the game show
To Tell the Truth in her role as
young writer. That same year, her mother brought suit against the
owners of
Zabar's delicatessen for failing
to protect her from an attempted sexual assault.
Career
Sheedy started acting in local stage productions as a teenager.
After appearing in several
made-for-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,
where she played the humiliated
rape victim
girlfriend of Penn's character. The 1980s were her most active
period, with roles in popular films such as
WarGames,
The Breakfast Club,
St. Elmo's Fire,
Short Circuit, and
Maid to Order.
Throughout most of the 1990s, Sheedy appeared in a number of
television films. 1998's
High Art,
a well-reviewed
independent film
about a romance between two women, was an important film in her
career. She identified with the character of photographer "Lucy
Berliner" so much that she took a plane at her own expense to
participate in an audition and has said that this character is the
closest one she has played to herself.
In 1999, Sheedy took over the lead role in the
off-Broadway production of
Hedwig and the Angry
Inch. She was the first female to play the part of the
German
transsexual "Hedwig," but her
run ended early amid bad reviews.
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 episode "
"Leapin' Lizards" of
C.S.I. in which she
played a woman who murdered her boyfriend's wife while mixed up in
a cult. 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 the Yin Yang killer on the USA tv show
Psych.
Personal life
On April 12, 1992, Sheedy married actor
David Lansbury, the nephew of actress
Angela Lansbury and son of Edgar
Lansbury, the producer of the original production of
Godspell. The couple has a daughter, Rebecca,
born in 1994. In May 2008 it was announced that Sheedy had filed
for divorce. Prior to her relationship with him, Sheedy had dated
actor
Eric Stoltz and guitarist
Richie Sambora.
In 1985 Sheedy was admitted to
Hazelden,
and in the 1990s was treated for
sleeping
pill addiction, an experience on which she drew for her role as
a drug-addicted photographer in
High Art.
Filmography
Books
Awards
References
External links
Wikis
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