Kelly McGillis

After making her film debut in Reuben, Reuben[10] in 1983, McGillis's breakout role was that of an Amish mother in Witness (1985) for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA award nominations. Her next high-profile role was that of flight instructor Charlotte Blackwood (call sign "Charlie") in the 1986 fighter-pilot film Top Gun starring Tom Cruise.[11]

In 1987, McGillis acted in the romance film Made in Heaven, directed by Alan Rudolph, which was produced by Lorimar Productions.[12]

McGillis played the part of caretaker for Miss Venable (Jessica Tandy) in 1988's The House on Carroll Street, which also starred Jeff Daniels. She overhears a suspicious conversation in the house next door and suspects that she's stumbled on a conspiracy to smuggle Nazi war criminals into the United States.

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.[13][14] McGillis appeared in dozens of television and film roles throughout the 1990s before taking a break from acting for a few years.

McGillis played the part of Babe Ruth's second wife, Claire Merritt Ruth, in The Babe (1992). From the late-1980s to the mid-1990s, McGillis appeared in Winter People (1989), and North (1994), her second Amish part in television or film, as well as several made-for-TV films.

In 1999, McGillis co-starred with Val Kilmer (who plays Virgil, a blind man), for a second time as his over protective sister in At First Sight.[15]

She played the suspect in the disappearance of a young woman in The Monkey's Mask, an international lesbian cult film from 2000 starring Susie Porter. The film is based on the verse novel of the same name by Australian poet Dorothy Porter.[16]

Kelly McGillis in The Monkey's Mask

McGillis's early television roles included a part on the daytime soap One Life to Live in 1984.

She starred in the 1984 television movie Sweet Revenge (also known as Bittersweet Revenge) with Alec Baldwin.[17]

Other television films during the 1980s included Private Sessions in 1985, and as a narrator in Santabear's First Christmas. She also narrated the documentary Out of Ireland for PBS in 1995.

While at Juilliard she performed in William Congreve's Love for Love, directed by John Bletchley. She appeared in a couple of off-broadway and Broadway theater productions during the 1980s in New York City.

During the late-1980s[18] and through the mid-2000s, McGillis was a featured actress at the prestigious Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC.[19] In 2002, she appeared in production of John Webber's play "The Duchess of Malfi" at the Shakespeare Theatre, Washington, DC.

In 2004, she appeared in the stage play The Graduate as Mrs. Robinson, touring the United States.[20] McGillis starred in a Pasadena Playhouse stage production of The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman in May 2009, co-starring with Julia Duffy.[21]

Her stage work includes: Don Juan (1982), The Sea Gull (1985), Peccadillo (1985), The Merchant of Venice (1988), Twelfth Night (1989), Mary Stuart (1990), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1990), Hedda Gabler (1994), Mourning Becomes Electra (1997), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), Measure for Measure (1999) and The Graduate (2004), together with additional roles in Love for Love, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Three Sisters and The Winter's Tale.

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.[22]

She began working in television again in 2006, then in 2007 joined the cast of Showtime's The L Word for its fifth season.[23]

She had a role in the 2010 vampire film Stake Land,[24] directed by Jim Mickle,[25] starring alongside Nick Damici, Connor Paolo and Danielle Harris.[26]

McGillis was featured in a breast cancer docu-drama titled 1 a Minute, released in 2010.[27]

She starred in Ti West's 2011 thriller The Innkeepers[28], We Are What We Are and Tio Papi in 2013, Grand Street, Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio (which was McGillis's third Amish-themed film), Z Nation, and an episode of Sisters of Mercy in 2014, and Blue in 2015.

An Uncommon Grace on Hallmark Channel was McGillis's fourth Amish themed film.[29] and she had the lead role in Mother of All Secrets (filmed in Bermuda) in 2017 as Rose Lewis.[30][31][32]

McGillis was left scratched and bruised after being assaulted by a woman who broke into her home on June 17, 2016.[43] She said the attack, as well as others she has experienced in the past, led her to apply for a concealed carry permit to protect herself. Following the incident, a 38-year-old woman, Laurence Marie Dorn, was charged with second-degree burglary, misdemeanor larceny, misdemeanor stalking, assault and battery, and interfering with emergency communication.[43] Dorn was later convicted of misdemeanor breaking and entering and sentenced to probation.[44]