Kelly Ann McGillis (born July 9, 1957) is an American actress. She found fame for her roles in several films throughout the 1980s including her roles as Rachel Lapp in Witness (1985) for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, Charlie in Top Gun (1986) and Kathryn Murphy in The Accused (1988).

Biography

McGillis married Boyd Black in 1979. They divorced in 1981.

McGillis and her girlfriend were assaulted, verbally abused, and raped in February 1982 at knifepoint by two men who broke into her New York apartment. One of the rapists was 15-year-old Leroy Johnson, who was on the run from juvenile detention. This experience encouraged the actress to pursue her film role as the lawyer who supports Jodie Foster's character in The Accused.

She married Fred Tillman in 1989, and they had two daughters: Kelsey and Sonora. The couple divorced in 2002. She also has two grandchildren.

McGillis came out as a lesbian in April 2009 during an interview with SheWired. McGillis said that coming to terms with her sexual orientation has been an ongoing process since age 12, and she was long convinced that God was punishing her for being homosexual with the aforementioned rape incident. In 2010, McGillis entered into a civil union with Melanie Leis, a Philadelphia-based sales executive; she and McGillis met in 2000 when Leis was a bartender at the restaurant she owned with her then-husband. Leis and McGillis broke up in 2012.

McGillis worked full-time with drug addicts and alcoholics at Seabrook House Drug Alcohol Rehab Center, a rehabilitation center in Bridgeton, New Jersey, when she and Leis shared a home in Collingswood.

McGillis currently lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina. She teaches acting at The New York Studio for Stage and Screen in Asheville.

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