Nicollette Sheridan (born 21 November 1963) is an English television and film actress, known for playing Paige Matheson on the CBS primetime soap opera Knots Landing (1986–93) and Edie Britt on the ABC dramedy series Desperate Housewives (2004–2009), for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film and for five Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning two.

In film, she is known for her roles in The Sure Thing (1985), Noises Off (1992), Spy Hard (1996) and Beverly Hills Ninja (1997).

Biography

Relationships

From 1979 to 1985, Sheridan dated singer and actor Leif Garrett. Two decades later, Garrett credited Sheridan for helping him at the start of his career, and said of her "She's a special person in my life."
Sheridan was married to actor Harry Hamlin from 1991 to 1993. The pair had starred together in the 1990 TV movie Deceptions.

She began seeing Swedish personal trainer Nicklas Söderblom in 2004 and became engaged to him on New Year's Eve 2004; the pair called off the engagement in October 2005.

After her 2005 break-up with Söderblom, Sheridan returned to ex-boyfriend Michael Bolton, whom she had originally dated for five years starting in 1992. Sheridan and Bolton announced their engagement in March 2006. In 2006, Sheridan and Bolton sang a duet, "The Second Time Around", for the album Bolton Swings Sinatra. In March 2008, Sheridan posed nude for a London Fog charity ad which also featured Bolton. Sheridan and Bolton broke off their engagement in August 2008.


Lawsuit
In April 2010, Sheridan filed a $20 million lawsuit against Desperate Housewives creator/producer Marc Cherry and ABC Television, alleging that she was assaulted by Cherry on the set of the show and was then fired when she reported the alleged abuse to the network. In her lawsuit, Sheridan claimed wrongful termination, assault and battery, gender violence, discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and age, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She also alleged that Cherry was abusive to other cast members and writers. ABC responded by stating that while they were unaware of this particular complaint, they had investigated similar claims made by Sheridan and reportedly found them to be without merit. The show's stars, Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria, pledged their support to help Cherry in his battle against Sheridan's allegations.

In May 2011, a judge granted permission for the case to continue to trial, but threw out Sheridan's claims of harassment. The case finally went to court on 27 February 2012. Cherry asserted that the alleged assault was in fact a tap to the head with his fingers, done in rehearsals when he was demonstrating to Sheridan how she should play a physical gag in a scene. He also stated that the decision to kill off her character was already approved in May 2008 (several months before the alleged hitting incident in September 2008) due, in part, to the need to reduce the show's budget. He also cited Sheridan's unprofessional on-set behavior (such as habitual lateness, not learning her lines, and feuding with her co-stars), and the fact that her character had simply "run its course" as other reasons for the decision. On 13 March 2012, the judge dismissed the battery charge against Cherry due to lack of evidence, and the lawsuit then focused solely on Sheridan's alleged wrongful termination by ABC. Closing arguments were heard on 14 March 2012 and the jury began their deliberations. By 19 March 2012, the twelve members of the jury had failed to reach a verdict and a mistrial was declared. A retrial was scheduled for September 2012, but this was dismissed in August when the Los Angeles Court of Appeal determined that Sheridan had not been wrongfully fired. The court rejected Sheridan's argument that ABC’s decision not to renew her option for another season was analogous to a violation of at-will employment. The court reasoned that unlike an at-will employee whose contract could remain in force indefinitely, Sheridan’s contract was for a set term that had expired and therefore ABC had not terminated her but simply chosen not to rehire her for another fixed-term contract. However, the court declared that Sheridan was free to file an amended lawsuit alleging that ABC retaliated against her for complaining about unsafe working conditions. A further appeal made by Sheridan to the California Supreme Court was rejected in November 2012, A new trial based solely on the retaliation claim was set for December 2013, but this too was dismissed in October 2013 by a judge who stated that Sheridan should have exhausted her claims through a labor commissioner before pursuing a trial. A further attempt by Sheridan to secure a new trial was refused on 16 January 2014, however the same judge reversed his decision on 29 January 2014 and granted Sheridan a new trial. In a further twist, this decision was later reversed in August 2014 by the Los Angeles Court of Appeal who found the judge's decision to grant Sheridan a new trial was in error.

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