Acting caught the attention of Kelly McGillis (Newport Beach, California, 1957) since she was a child. After leaving school when she was still in high school, she enrolled in the prestigious Juilliard drama school. Like many other actors, she initially made a living working as a waitress and between casting and casting in 1983 she made her film debut with the comedy Reuben, Reuben alongside Tom Conti.
Right after she made the jump to television with Sweet Revenge until she got her big opportunity with Sole Witness (1985) alongside Harrison Ford. Directed by Peter Weir, she played a young widow from an Amish community whose son witnesses a murder. Ford was the detective in charge of investigating the case and protecting the mother and child.
Her work in the film as the innocent Rachel Lapp earned her a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress and her name began to be heard among the most prominent producers in Hollywood. One of them, Jerry Bruckheimer, signed her for his next project, Top Gun: idols of the AirDrama School, a film built for the greater glory of the American army that became a total box office success since its premiere in American theaters on May 16. of 1986.
Under the direction of Tony Scott, she played Charlie Blackwood, the attractive flight instructor who fell in love with the handsome and rebellious Maverick, who was played by Tom Cruise with a leather jacket, dark glasses, and a tremendous desire to conquer the world at the controls of a F-14. McGillis, five years older than Tom and eight centimeters taller - she is 1.78m -, had to act somewhat stooped so as not to clash as a couple in the film.
This second success in her budding career turned her into a symbol, but for her, being recognized on the street did not go well at all. "She made me more distrustful," she once said. She was about to step into the shoes of the tormented Madame de Tourvel from Dangerous Liaisons. However, the all-powerful film critic Pauline Kael convinced director Stephen Frears to opt instead for another emerging blonde: Michelle Pfeiffer.
After appearing with Timothy Hutton in the romantic fantasy Made in Heaven (1987), by Alan Rudolph, and accompanying Jeff Daniels in the thriller The House on Carroll Street, McGillis received an interesting and risky proposal based on real events, the of being a young woman who suffers a gang rape in a bar in Accused (1988). A role that she rejected due to a traumatic episode that occurred when she was 24 years old.
The success of 'Top Gun' turned her into a symbol and made her more distrustful
And in 1982 she was assaulted along with a friend by two men who entered her house armed with knives, a situation that left her traumatized for a long time and plunged her into a spiral of self-destruction with drugs and alcohol. Finally, Jodie Foster took the role of Sarah Tobias, with which she won the Oscar for best actress, and Kelly reserved the role of her lawyer Katherine Murphy, her third most remembered character by the audience.
After Jonathan Kaplan's courtroom drama, she was directed by Abel Ferrara in the thriller The Catcher, co-starring Peter Weller. Filming was a real hell for Kelly. She got along so badly with the director and Weller that as soon as production ended she left angrily. “If this is what acting is going to be like, I won't do it. On the last day of filming, I said: Are you done with me? Yes, she answered. "I went into my trailer, shaved my head, and said, I never want to act again,'" she told Independent Woman.
It was then that Kelly decided to gradually withdraw from the film industry to take refuge in some television films and plays that were released without pain or glory. In 1989 she married millionaire Fred Tillman. They started a restaurant business and had two daughters: Kelsey and Sonora. The couple divorced in 2002 and in 2009 Kelly came out of the closet, making her homos- public.
The news surprised the public, although in Hollywood her true inclination was an open secret. The tabloid press claimed that she had had affairs with Madonna and Jodie Foster. After maintaining a secret relationship with Melanie Leis, one of the workers at the family restaurant, they both visited the vicarage in 2010. The love only lasted two more years and in 2012 they separated.
