Ally Sheedy

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 playing a drug-addicted lesbian photographer 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 Drunk 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.