Ally Sheedy

Elmo's Fire (1985), Sheedy and many of her co-stars were nicknamed the "Brat Pack". She subsequently appeared in the films Twice in a Lifetime (1985), Blue City, Short Circuit (both 1986), Betsy's Wedding (1990) and Only the Lonely (1991). She received three Saturn Award nominations for Best Actress for the science fiction films WarGames (1983), Fear (1990) and Man's Best Friend (1993). Following a career downturn in the late 1980s, Sheedy won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for playing a drug-addicted lesbian photographer in the romantic drama film High Art (1998). She had a main role in the comedy television series Single Drunk Female (2022–2023). Sheedy also works as a literary editor and has authored two books, including the best-selling historical fiction novel She Was Nice to Mice (1975) which was published when she was aged 12. Since 2021, Sheedy has taught at the City College of New York.

Ally Sheedy studied at University of Southern California, Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School and Bank Street College of Education. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is acting and American literature. Employment is recorded with City University of New York.

• Name — Ally Sheedy • Birth Name — Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy • Born — 13 June 1962 • Birthplace — New York City, New York, U.S. • Occupation — * Actress • author • teacher • Years Active — 1978–present • Children — 1

Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy was born on June 13, 1962, in New York City, the eldest of three children of Charlotte (née Baum), a literary agent involved in women's and civil rights movements, and John Sheedy Jr., an advertising executive. Her mother is Ashkenazi Jewish, and her father has Irish Catholic ancestry. Sheedy's maternal grandmother emigrated from Odessa, Ukraine. Sheedy identifies as Jewish. Her parents divorced in 1971. Sheedy was raised on the Upper West Side. She danced with American Ballet Theatre from the age of six, and well into adolescence. She attended the Bank Street School for Children, followed by Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, graduating in 1980. In her senior year she directed a stage production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.

Sheedy's first literary piece was published in Ms. when she was twelve. She wrote freelance reviews of kids' books for The New York Times, Ms. and The Village Voice. • Illustration — Sheedy and her mother, Charlotte, in Los Angeles, 1975 Sheedy often wrote short stories in her youth. She enjoyed novels with animal protagonists such as Stuart Little (1945), and had an interest in the Tudors sparked by the film Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), which led to her writing a story about a mouse living at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. She read two chapters to her mother's friend, Joyce Johnson, who brought it to McGraw Hill Education as a possible project. In 1975, McGraw Hill published the story as a novel titled She Was Nice to Mice: The Other Side of Elizabeth I's Character Never Before Revealed by Previous Historians. It was illustrated by Sheedy's friend Jessica Ann Levy. The novel was well-received and became a best-seller. Sheedy promoted the novel on the game show To Tell the Truth and the talk show The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. An audiobook record, narrated by Sheedy, was released in 1976 on the Caedmon label. She earned enough royalties to put herself through college.

Sheedy began a career in acting, despite parental disapproval; she started acting in commercials at the age of 15. At age 18, she relocated to Los Angeles, where she enrolled at the University of Southern California. Sheedy concurrently began her acting career and intermittently completed three years' worth of courses toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama. • Illustration — Sheedy in a 1982 press photo for Chicago Story One of Sheedy's early dramatic television roles was in the CBS Afternoon Playhouse episode "I Think I'm Having a Baby". Throughout the early 1980s she appeared in the television movies The Best Little Girl in the World (1981) and The Violation of Sarah McDavid (1981), and in guest roles on the drama series Chicago Story (1982), St. Elsewhere (1982) and Hill Street Blues (1983). Sheedy rose to fame with a string of major film roles. She made her film acting debut in the crime drama film Bad Boys (1983), in which she played the girlfriend of Sean Penn's character. The same year, she starred alongside Matthew Broderick in the science fiction film WarGames, for which she was nominated for her first Saturn Award for Best Actress and for the Youth in Film Award for Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture. She co-starred with Rob Lowe in Oxford Blues (1984). In 1985, Sheedy became associated with the "Brat Pack", an informal group of young actors who frequently co-starred in teen-oriented films. Reporter David Blum used the term—a play on the "Rat Pack"—to refer to Sheedy's past co-stars Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson in the New York article "Hollywood's Brat Pack", but the media subsequently included Sheedy along with actors Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. She starred alongside various Brat Pack members in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire, both 1985 coming-of-age films with ensemble casts. Sheedy disliked the label, calling it in 1986 "snotty" and "condescending and sort of dismissive in a way", and said the article's publication caused the social group to splinter. In Twice in a Lifetime (1985), she played the daughter of Gene Hackman's character. Sheedy appeared with Judd Nelson in Blue City (1986), which was poorly reviewed. Her first starring film role was in the science fiction comedy film Short Circuit (1986), in which her character Stephanie befriends an escaped robot. • Illustration — From left: Molly Ringwald, Sheedy, Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall in February 2025. All four actors are considered members of the Brat Pack.

Sheedy had lead roles in the films Maid to Order (1987) and Heart of Dixie (1989), both commercial flops. For her performances in Blue City and Heart of Dixie, Sheedy received two nominations for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress. Sheedy was told that her perceived lack of sex appeal was to blame for her stalling career, and she was encouraged by both her management team and film producers to alter her appearance and public persona. Sheedy reflected in 1998 that "I did not do the things I was supposed to do to make myself into a movie star. Part of that is because it went against my ethics, and part of it was I realized at a certain point that being a movie star isn’t what I wanted to be." Sheedy starred in the horror film Fear (1990) as a psychic. She also featured in the romantic comedy films Betsy's Wedding (1990) and Only the Lonely (1991); for the former, she was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress, Sheedy made a cameo appearance in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) as an airline attendant. Her performances in Fear and Man's Best Friend (1993) earned her two more Saturn Award nominations for Best Actress. Sheedy's book of poetry, Yesterday I Saw the Sun, was published by Summit Books in 1991. It was not critically well-reviewed. In 1997, Sheedy was fired by her talent agency William Morris. She returned to New York and spent a decade studying with acting teacher Harold Guskin. Sheedy starred in the independent romantic drama film High Art (1998) as Lucy Berliner, a heroin-addicted lesbian photographer. Sheedy was actively searching for an "interesting" role such as Lucy, and impulsively flew to meet writer-director Lisa Cholodenko after reading High Art 's script. Her performance was recognized with awards from the Independent Spirit Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and National Society of Film Critics. Critics noted that the role contrasted the "girl-next-door" image Sheedy cultivated in the early 80s. Sheedy stated in 2022 that High Art was her favourite film in her filmography. Film critic Guy Lodge, writing for The Guardian in 2024, called it her best performance.

In September 1999, Sheedy took over the titular role in the off-Broadway production of the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She was the first woman to play the part of the transsexual Hedwig, but her run ended two months early amid "mixed" reviews. That same year, she starred in the ensemble cast of the independent film Sugar Town. She also made a cameo appearance in the film adaptation of the play Advice from a Caterpillar, having starred in the show's 1991 off-Broadway production. • Illustration — Sheedy at SMYAL's Fall Brunch in 2013 Sheedy was reunited with Breakfast Club co-star Anthony Michael Hall when she guest starred on the second season of the television series The Dead Zone (2003). Sheedy appeared in the television series C.S.I. (2007) and Kyle XY (2008). From 2009 to 2013, she played the role of serial killer Mr. Yang on the USA Network detective series Psych. Yang was originally intended to only appear in the series' third season, but Sheedy went on to reprise the role three more times over the following four seasons. The character was planned to return in Psych: The Movie (2017), but due to budget issues this was dropped. Sheedy portrayed a schoolteacher in the superhero film X-Men: Apocalypse (2016). She guest starred in the second season of the Showtime comedy series SMILF (2019). Sheedy played Carol Fink, a single mother to an alcoholic daughter, in the Freeform series Single Drunk Female (2022–2023). In June 2024, Deadline reported that Sony was considering producing a sequel to St. Elmo’s Fire with the original cast, including Sheedy. Sheedy became a volunteer teacher at LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts. Since 2022, she has been a professor in the theater department at the City College of New York. Sheedy also edits books under a pseudonym. In January 2026, it was announced that Sheedy had joined the City College of New York’s first Film Advisory Board. In 2026, Sheedy executive produced and portrayed Barbara Heisler in Madison Young's autobiographical drama film By the Roots.

In January 2018, Sheedy published three tweets which included the #MeToo hashtag along with comments referring to actors James Franco and Christian Slater. Media outlets assumed this meant the two actors had been sexually abusive to her. She later deleted the tweets.

Sheedy became a vegetarian at the age of 12. She struggled with bulimia since her time as a dancer. Sheedy had an abortion when she was 16. In 1986 and 1987, Sheedy was in a relationship with musician Steve Ross. Around 1989, Sheedy dated Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi's guitarist, for less than a year. Sheedy stated in 1998 that the relationship led her to abuse Halcion, Xanax and antidepressants, a claim Sambora denied. Her dependency on Halcion was so severe that a group of friends persuaded her to seek rehabilitation at the Hazelden Foundation in Minneapolis. Sheedy briefly dated Woody Harrelson in 1989. Sheedy met actor David Lansbury, the nephew of actress Angela Lansbury and son of producer Edgar Lansbury, while working together in an off-Broadway play. They married in 1992, and divorced in 2008. The couple had a son, who is transgender. Sheedy supports LGBT rights. In November 2012, she hosted a fundraiser for the Ali Forney Center—an LGBT community center that helps LGBT homeless youth—which raised funds to relocate and reopen the drop-in center.

• Year — Association — Category — Work — Result — Reference(s) • 1983 — Youth in Film Award — Best Young Motion Picture Actress in a Feature Film — WarGames • 1987 — Jupiter Award — Best International Actress — Short Circuit • 1998 — Boston Society of Film Critics — Best Actress — High Art • 1999 — Los Angeles Film Critics Association — Best Actress (tied with Fernanda Montenegro for Central Station) • Independent Spirit Awards — Best Female Lead • National Society of Film Critics — Best Actress • Chicago Film Critics Association — Best Actress • Chlotrudis Society for Independent Films — Best Actress • 2005 — MTV Movie Awards — Silver Bucket of Excellence Award (accepted by Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall) — The Breakfast Club • 2010 — Gotham Independent Film Awards — Best Ensemble Performance — Life During Wartime

• Illustration — Sheedy in 2003 with a Peabody Award for The Interrogation of Michael Crowe.

• Year — Category — Work — Result — Reference(s) • 1984 — Best Actress — WarGames • 1991 — Fear • 1994 — Man's Best Friend

• Year — Category — Work — Result — Reference(s) • 1987 — Worst Actress — Blue City • 1990 — Heart of Dixie • 1991 — Worst Supporting Actress — Betsy's Wedding