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Moira Kelly

( Living People )

Early life
Career
Personal life
Filmography

Film
Television
Video games
As a director

References
External links

C O N T E N T S

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Moira Kelly (born March 6, 1968) is an American actress. She is known for portraying Kate Moseley in the 1992 film The Cutting Edge as well as single mother Karen Roe on the teen drama One Tree Hill. She is also known for playing the role of Donna Hayward in , replacing Lara Flynn Boyle in the prequel to the 1990 TV series Twin Peaks. Other roles include Dorothy Day in , White House media consultant Mandy Hampton in the first season of The West Wing, and the voice of Simba's love interest Nala in The Lion King and its direct-to-video sequels and The Lion King 1½. She also played Hetty Kelly and Oona O'Neill in Chaplin.

Early life

Moira Kelly was born in Queens, New York on March 6, 1968. She is the daughter of a trained concert violinist, Peter, and a nurse, Anne, who are Irish Americans. Kelly is the third of six children and was raised in Ronkonkoma, New York. She was brought up as a Catholic Church. Kelly attended Connetquot Senior High School in Bohemia, Long Island, graduating in the class of 1986. Later, she attended Marymount Manhattan College.

In her youth, Kelly was cast in a small role in her high school's 1984 production of Annie. Due to illness, the girl playing Miss Hannigan was replaced, causing a series of cast changes leading to her choice of career. A devout Catholic, Kelly had to decide between acting and her childhood ambition of becoming a nun.

Career

Kelly made her professional acting debut in the fact-based made-for-TV movie Love, Lies and Murder, playing teenager Cinnamon Brown, who was coerced by her father into killing his wife and her stepmother, Linda Brown. She was originally going to have a starring role as Polly Pry in Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Cannibal! The Musical, but Kelly was convinced not to do so by her agent out of concerns it could potentially ruin her career, and was ultimately replaced with Toddy Walters, though she was still credited in the end credits under her initials "M.K." as "the Dropout"."Chapter 5 - Moira, Moira, Moira", The Making of Cannibal! The Musical, by Jason McHugh Retrieved 16 June 2020. She went on to have small roles in the films The Boy Who Cried Bitch, Hi-Life, and Billy Bathgate before being cast as Donna Hayward in . For that film, she went home and got permission from her priest because of an explicit sex scene. In the same year, she starred opposite D. B. Sweeney in the romantic comedy The Cutting Edge (during whose filming Kelly suffered a broken ankle, which cost her a part in Penny Marshall's film A League of Their Own) and played two roles opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Chaplin. According to a TV Guide interview, before taking on her role in Daybreak, Kelly once again asked her priest for advice: "Being a Catholic, I wondered if it would be against my religion to play a girl who has premarital sex." The priest told her "it was okay, as long as my artistic intentions were true and I wasn't doing it for the notoriety or the money." "A Message from Marrs". This Rock. February 1993.

She has since appeared in the films With Honors, Little Odessa, The Tie That Binds, and Dangerous Beauty, amongst others, and provided the adult voice of Nala in Disney's The Lion King, , and The Lion King 1½. In her independent film career, Kelly had the starring role of activist Dorothy Day in and starred alongside Glenn Close in The Safety of Objects. She played Helen Keller in the made-for-TV movie Monday After the Miracle, which broadcast on November 15, 1998, on CBS.

Kelly starred in the CBS drama To Have & to Hold opposite Jason Beghe before playing Mandy Hampton in the first season of The West Wing. In 2003, Kelly began playing single mother Karen Roe on the teen drama One Tree Hill. She also directed two episodes of the series: "Resolve" (2007) and "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me" (2006). In the fifth season, she ceased to be a regular cast member, but made guest appearances in the 100th episode and the sixth-season finale. She has made guest appearances in television shows such as Heroes, Law & Order, and Numb3rs. Kelly has also appeared in the films Remember the Daze, A Smile as Big as the Moon, Taken Back: Finding Haley, and Girl in the Bunker.

Kelly reprised her role of Nala from the Disney animated movie series The Lion King in adventure video game Disney Dreamlight Valley released in 2023.

Personal life

On August 5, 2000, Kelly married Steve Hewitt, a Texas businessman. They have two children, a daughter Ella and a son Eamon. Kelly had previously maintained a residence in Wilmington, North Carolina, for eleven years.

Filmography

Film

1991		Jessica Rosenberg
1991	Billy Bathgate	Becky
1992	Thirty Below Zero	Lucy	Short
		Kate Moseley
		Donna Hayward
	Chaplin	Hetty Kelly / Oona O'Neill
1993	Cannibal! The Musical	"The Dropout"	Credited under "M.K.", dropped out early in production
1994	With Honors	Courtney Blumenthal
		Adult Nala (voice)
	Little Odessa	Alla Shustervich
1995		Dana Clifton
1996	Unhook the Stars	Ann Mary Margaret "Annie" Hawks
1996		Dorothy Day
1997	Love Walked In	Vera
	Changing Habits	Soosh Teague
	Drive, She Said	Nadine Ship
1998	Dangerous Beauty	Beatrice Venier
	Hi-Life	Susan
		Nala (voice)	Video
1999	Henry Hill	Cynthia
2001		Susan Train
2004		Woman	Short
2004		Nala (voice)	Video
2006	Two Tickets to Paradise	Kate
2007	Remember the Daze	Mrs. Ford
2014		Donna Hayward	Deleted Scenes from (1992)

Television

1991	Love, Lies and Murder	Cinnamon Brown	TV miniseries
1993	Daybreak	Blue	TV film
1998	Monday After the Miracle	Helen Keller	TV film
1998	To Have & to Hold	Annie Cornell	Main role
1999-2000		Mandy Hampton	Regular role
2002	Hack	Vanessa Griffin	"My Brother's Keeper"
2002		Elizabeth Carter	"Found and Lost"
2003-2009	One Tree Hill	Karen Roe	Main role
2008	Law & Order	Katherine Donovan	"Betrayal"
2009	Heroes	Abby Collins	"Building 26"
2010	Numb3rs	Mary Paulson	"Growin' Up"
2012		Darcy Kersjes	TV film
2012	Taken Back: Finding Haley	Karen	TV film
2013	Drop Dead Diva	Cindy Kasper	"50 Shades of Grayson"
2017	Deadly Sorority	Prof. Amy Thomas	TV film
2018	Girl in the Bunker	Madeline Shoaf	TV film
2019	The Resident	Annie	3 episodes
2019	Christmas In Louisiana	Charlotte Winter	TV film
2021	Panic	Laura Cortez	7 episodes
2022	My Southern Family Christmas	Jennifer Bergeron	TV film (Hallmark Channel)
2023	Citadel	Joe	5 episodes
2025	Love of the Irish	Helen	TV film (Hallmark Channel)