Moira Kelly

Biography

Moira Kelly was born on March 6, 1968 in Queens, New York, the third of six children. Her parents, both Irish immigrants, were deeply involved in music and caring professions—her father trained as a concert violinist and her mother worked as a nurse. Growing up in Ronkonkoma, she discovered her love for performance in high school. In 1984 she stepped into a major role in her school’s production of Annie, after illness forced other cast changes, and this helped launch her towards acting. She attended Connetquot Senior High School, graduating in 1986, then studied at Marymount Manhattan College. Her screen debut came in the early 1990s with roles in Love, Lies and Murder, Billy Bathgate, and The Boy Who Cried Bitch. She rose to wider recognition playing Kate Moseley in The Cutting Edge (1992), and went on to notable parts in Chaplin, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and providing the voice of Nala in Disney’s The Lion King and its sequels. On television, she starred as Mandy Hampton in The West Wing and as Karen Roe in One Tree Hill. In 2000 she married Steve Hewitt, with whom she has two children.