Born and raised in Manhattan,
Ally Sheedy was performing at Lincoln Center with the American Ballet theatre by the age of six. At twelve, she wrote a best-selling children's book entitled She Was Nice To Mice, and followed this with feature articles in The New York Times, The Village Voice and Ms. At fifteen, Sheedy began appearing in off-Broadway plays and in TV commercials. After graduating from high school, she moved to Los Angeles, enrolled at the University of Southern California as a drama major and won major roles in the TV movies
The Best Little Girl in the World,
Splendor in the Grass, and a recurring role on the popular series
Hill Street Blues.
Her first main film roles came in 1983 when she starred opposite Sean Penn in Bad Boys, and Matthew Broderick in WarGames. These were followed by Oxford Blues, The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, Twice in a Lifetime, Short Circuit, Maid to Order, Heart of Dixie, Alan Alda's Betsy's Wedding, Only the Lonely, Paul Mazursky's The Pickle, Talia Shire's One Night Stand, and upcoming, Myth America, Groupies, Crossroads of Destiny (with David Carradine), Autumn Heart, and Noah Baumbach's Highball.
Sheedy's extensive television credits also include We are the Children, Fear, The Lost Capone, Lethal Exposure, Ultimate Betrayal, The Haunting of Seacliff Inn, The Tin Soldier, Hijacked: Flight 285, Amnesia, Country Justice, and the acclaimed Showtime movies Chantilly Lace and Parallel Lives. She also starred for the cable network in their popular Outer Limits series. In 1991, Sheedy published a book of her poetry, Yesterday I Saw the Sun. She lives in New York City with her husband and her four-year-old daughter.
