Kelly McGillis

McGillis was married to fellow Juilliard student Boyd Black from 1979 to 1981. She married Fred Tillman in 1989, and they had two daughters before divorcing in 2002. She entered a civil union with Melanie Leis in 2010, and the relationship ended in 2011.

McGillis came out as a lesbian in 2009. She also worked full-time with people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction at Seabrook House Drug Alcohol Rehab Center in New Jersey.

In 1982, while studying at Juilliard, McGillis was raped at knifepoint in her Manhattan apartment. She later connected the experience to her decision to play prosecutor Kathryn Murphy in The Accused, rather than the film's victim. In 2016, she was assaulted during a home invasion in North Carolina, and the woman who broke into her home was later convicted of misdemeanor breaking and entering.

McGillis studied at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts before moving to New York City and enrolling at the Juilliard School, where she graduated in 1983. While pursuing acting, she worked as a waitress and performed in stage productions, including Don Juan.

Her first credited feature-film role was Geneva Spofford in the Academy Award-nominated black comedy Reuben, Reuben (1983). She followed it with television work, including Sweet Revenge (1984) with Alec Baldwin and Private Sessions (1985).

Director Peter Weir cast her as Rachel Lapp in Witness (1985), opposite Harrison Ford. The film became a major success, and McGillis received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for her performance as the Amish mother whose son witnesses a murder.

McGillis achieved her best-known screen role in Top Gun (1986), playing Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood, a flight instructor who becomes romantically involved with Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. The film was the highest-grossing movie of 1986 and made McGillis widely recognized internationally.

She next starred opposite Timothy Hutton in Made in Heaven (1987). In 1988, she played Emily in The House on Carroll Street, alongside Jeff Daniels, and prosecutor Kathryn Murphy in The Accused, opposite Jodie Foster. Foster won the Academy Award for her performance in the film.

Other films from this period included Winter People (1989) with Kurt Russell and Cat Chaser (1989) with Peter Weller. McGillis later said the experience of making Cat Chaser discouraged her from continuing an onscreen career.

McGillis maintained a substantial stage career alongside her film work, appearing with the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. Her stage roles included Shakespeare productions such as The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Measure for Measure.

She made her Broadway debut as the title character in Hedda Gabler in 1994, though the production closed after 33 performances. She later toured the United States as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate and appeared in The Little Foxes at the Pasadena Playhouse in 2009. In 2010, she toured the United Kingdom in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.

Her later screen credits included The Babe (1992), North (1994), At First Sight (1999), The Monkey's Mask (2000), Stake Land (2010), The Innkeepers (2011), and We Are What We Are (2013). She also appeared in The L Word, Z Nation, An Uncommon Grace, Maternal Secrets, and one episode of Dirty John.

McGillis co-starred in and produced the television film Grand Isle in 1991, adapted from Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening. She also narrated the PBS documentary Out of Ireland and provided narration for the cancer documentary 1 a Minute.

During periods when she worked less frequently in film and television, McGillis focused on theater, teaching, and addiction studies. She also owned Kelly's Caribbean Bar, Grill and Brewery in Key West, Florida, with her then-husband Fred Tillman.