Kelly McCreary’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

Intro Actress
Is Actor 
Stage actor 
Voice actor 
Film actor 
From United States of America 
Type Film, TV, Stage & Radio 
Gender female
Birth 29 September 1981, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, USA
Age: 38 years
Star sign Libra
Education
Barnard College

Kelly J. McCreary (born July 10, 1981) is an American actress, best known for her role on the ABC drama series Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Maggie Pierce, the half-sister of series protagonist Meredith Grey. She joined the series as a guest at the end of the tenth season, becoming a series regular in the eleventh season. She has reprised her role on the spin-off series Station 19.

McCreary began her career acting in theatre, eventually making it to Broadway, and has performed in a number of productions by playwright Dominique Morisseeau. She made her screen debut doing voice work for several animated children’s educational programs, and later made guest appearances on the television series Rubicon, I Just Want My Pants Back, and Castle, with multi-episode arcs on White Collar and Scandal. She has appeared in the films Being Flynn (2011) and Life (2015). McCreary was a series regular on The CW’s short-lived medical drama Emily Owens, M.D. as Tyra Dupre.

Early life and education

McCreary was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on September 29, 1981 to Mary and Geoffrey McCreary. She became interested in acting and theatre in the fourth grade and attended middle and high schools for the arts. McCreary first appeared on stage in a sixth-grade musical. At age 17, she moved to New York City to study acting at Barnard College, an affiliate of Columbia University. She appeared in several productions at the Minor Latham Playhouse, and worked on Columbia’s Varsity Show during her junior year. She also spent a semester at the British American Drama Academy in London and appeared in numerous commercials before graduating from Barnard in 2003. McCreary has also trained at the Chautauqua Conservatory Theatre Company and The Actor’s Center in New York.

Career

Following her graduation from Barnard College, McCreary lived in Harlem and worked part-time at Barnard’s alumnae affairs office while she continued to go on auditions and perform in plays. Frustrated with a lack of success in television and film at that point, as well as disappointment with her stage work, McCreary effectively quit acting and moved to Spain, where she worked on a farm. However, she returned to performing when Dominique Morisseau’s play Follow Me to Nellie’s, which McCreary had previously workshopped, scored a production. McCreary later reflected, “In that tough time, before I quit acting, that was one of the few creative things that had made me really happy. And then it was getting a production. So I was, like, I will totally go back to do this. I may never do anything again after it. But I know I’m going to have a great time: I love these people, and I love this play.” McCreary played the role of Na Rose.

In 2005, McCreary made her screen debut on the PBS animated series Cyberchase, and later appeared on another animated PBS series, The Electric Company. She made her Broadway debut in the 2008 musical Passing Strange. McCreary also had a recurring role on the USA Network series White Collar. In 2010, she landed a starring role in the Off-Broadway musical comedy Perfect Harmony. She made her film debut with a small role in the 2011 feature Being Flynn as Inez. In 2012, she was cast in the first major role of her career, on The CW medical series Emily Owens, M.D., opposite Mamie Gummer and Aja Naomi King, playing the role of Tyra Dupre, a first-year surgical intern who is also a lesbian. However, the series was cancelled after one season. McCreary has additionally appeared on the television series Castle, I Just Want My Pants Back, and Rubicon. She played the role of Eartha Kitt in the indie film Life opposite Dane DeHaan and Robert Pattinson, and also had roles in the films Baby Baby Baby and How to Follow Strangers. Her other stage credits include Secret Order with the Merrimack Repertory Theater, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Eurydice with the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

In 2014, after guest-starring in two episodes of the Shonda Rhimes political drama Scandal as Clare Tucker, McCreary joined Rhimes’ other ABC drama series, Grey’s Anatomy. McCreary debuted in the penultimate episode of the medical drama’s tenth season titled “Everything I Try to Do, Nothing Seems to Turn Out Right” in the role of Dr. Maggie Pierce, the half-sister of series protagonist Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo). She continued to recur on the series and after appearing in four episodes of the series’ eleventh season, McCreary was promoted to series regular status on October 23, 2014. McCreary has reprised her role in the spin-off series Station 19, appearing in the crossover episodes “Under the Surface” from the first season and “Always Ready” from the second season.

During her Grey’s Anatomy hiatus in 2017, McCreary played Esther Mills in a production of the play Intimate Apparel. In 2018, McCreary booked one of the lead roles in the Netflix animated series Harvey Street Kids, where she voices the character Dot. The series premiered on June 29, 2018. A second season retitled Harvey Girls Forever! was released on May 10, 2019. In 2018, McCreary also produced a short film titled A Cohort of Guests featuring several of her co-stars from Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19, and reunited with Morisseau to star as Shanita in the Geffen Playhouse production of the playwright’s Skeleton Crew.

Personal life

McCreary resides in Los Angeles, California.

While living in New York City, McCreary co-founded the Jaradoa Theater Company, an organization committed to community outreach. She is an associate member of IAMA Theater in Los Angeles and an associate artist with The Civilians, a theater company that “creates new work based on creative investigation into vital questions of the present.” In 2015, she became a member of the Equal Justice Society Board of Directors.

In 2018, McCreary participated in former First Lady Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote campaign, serving as an ambassador. The campaign aimed to increase voter turnout in the United States by encouraging citizens to register to vote in preparation for the upcoming midterm elections.

In January 2019, McCreary revealed that she and director Pete Chatmon were engaged after meeting on the set of Grey’s Anatomy two years prior. They married in early May 2019.

You May Also Like

Angelina Jolie’s net worth, biography, fact, career, awards and life story

Angelina Jolie net worth: Angelina Jolie is an American actress, filmmaker and humanitarian. She has at times been one of the highest-paid actresses in the world, commanding $20 million in salary for a single role. Angelina Jolie’s net worth is $120 million as of this writing. In a typical recent year Angelina earns $20-30 million from movie salaries and endorsements. For example, between June 2019 and June 2020 Angelina earned $35 million. Early Life: Angelina Jolie Voight was born June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of actors John Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand. Jolie’s parents divorced in 1976 and she and her brother James Haven lived with their mother, who gave up her acting ambitions to raise her children. Her father’s successful acting career inspired young Angelina to become an actor. When she was five-years-old, she had a bit part in her father’s film Lookin’ to Get Out (1982). When she was six, her mother and her live-in boyfriend moved to Palisades, New York. They moved back to Los Angeles five years later. It was at this time that she decided she wanted to act and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. She trained there for two years. Jolie spent some time at Beverly Hills High School where she felt isolated from her affluent classmates because her family survived on her mother’s modest income. She was bullied by other teens for being very thin with glasses and braces. Her mom tried to get her to model, but early attempts at that were unsuccessful. She transferred to Moreno High School. It was at this point that she began wearing all black clothing. She lived with her boyfriend and experimented with knife play. Career: Jolie’s first leading role in a film was in the 1993 straight-to-video sci-fi thriller Cyborg 2, followed by the cult-hit Hackers in 1995. Her breakthrough role came two years later, in 1997, with the biopic George Wallace, for which she won her first Golden Globe Award, followed up with another Golden Globe for her portrayal of supermodel Gia Carangi in HBO’s Gia. Jolie swept the awards, earning a third Golden Globe, a second Screen Actors Guild Award and her first Academy Award for her supporting role in Girl, Interrupted. Jolie’s diversity has secured her roles as an action star as seen in the Lara Croft franchise and Mr. and Mrs. Smith and as a voice actress for features Shark Tale and Kung-Fu Panda, which is Jolie’s most financially successful film to date with gross earnings at $632 million worldwide. Jolie directed, wrote and produced the film In the Land of Blood and Honey in 2011. After a three-and-a-half-year absence from the screen, Jolie starred in Maleficent (2014), a live-action reimagining of Disney’s 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty. That same year she wrote and directed the film Unbroken. Jolie’s next directorial effort was the marital drama By the Sea (2015), in which she starred opposite her then-husband, Brad Pitt, marking their first collaboration since 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Jolie also wrote, produced, and directed the 2017 movie First They Killed My Father and starred in and executive produced the film The Breadwinner. Jolie reprised the role of Maleficent in the Disney fantasy sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil in 2019, which received unfavorable reviews from critics but did moderately well at the box office with a global gross of $490 million. Salary Highlights: Between 2001 and 2011 alone, Angelina Jolie earned over $120 million in movie salaries alone. She earned $7 million for the first Lara Croft movie then $12 million for the second. She earned $10 million for Mr & Mrs Smith, The Good Shepherd and A Mighty Heart. Her salary jumped to $15 million for Wanted, then $20 million for Salt and $19 million for The Tourist. Personal Life: Jolie met Jonny Lee Miller on the set of Hackers in 1995 and married him in March 1996. Instead of the traditional bridal gown, Jolie wore black rubber pants and a white t-shirt on which she had written her groom’s name on in her blood. The split the following year and divorced in 1999. Jolie’s divorce was finalized just shortly before she married actor Billy Bob Thornton on May 5, 2000, in Las Vegas after two months of dating. They met on the set of 1999’s Pushing Tin. The couple was known for public declarations of their love, including wearing vials of one another’s blood around their necks. Jolie and Thornton adopted a son, Maddox, from Cambodia in March 2002. They separated abruptly three months later. Their divorce was finalized on May 27, 2003. Jolie was accused of causing the divorce of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston in October 2005. She said she fell in love with wth Pitt while they were filming 2005’s Mr. & Mrs; Smith. They went public with their relationship in January 2006, when she confirmed that she was pregnant with his child. Jolie and Pitt were together for 12 years. Their family grew to include six children, three of whom were adopted. Jolie and Pitt married on August 23, 2014. They separated in September 2016. Their divorce proceedings and custody battle was drawn out. Their divorce was final on April 12, 2019. Jolie has six children: three sons and three daughters. Of the children, three were adopted internationally, while three are her biological children with Brad Pitt. Maddox (born 2001) was adopted from Cambodia in 2002 with Billy Bob Thornton. Pitt adopted Maddox in 2006. Pax (born 2003) was adopted from Vietnam in 2007 by Jolie and adopted by Pitt in 2008. Zahara (born 2005) was adopted from Ethiopia in 2005 by Jolie and by Pitt in 2006. Shiloh (born 2006), Knox (born 2008), and Vivienne (born 2008) are Jolie and Pitt’s biological children. Jolie is heavily involved in humanitarian efforts, becoming involved with UNHCR, traveling all over the world on field missions and donating money to various relief organizations. Jolie also co-founded the Jolie-Pitt Foundation with actor Brad Pitt. Money Problems? As part of their bitter divorce battle, in August 2018 Angelina claimed to be cash-strapped and demanded more financial support from Brad Pitt. Court records revealed that Pitt had given Jolie $8 million as a down payment for the $25 million property she purchased in April 2017 because she did not have the funds herself. In reality, it’s likely that Angelina has ample funds that are locked up in trusts and investments. When they married in 2014, Pitt and Jolie agreed they did not need a prenup because both were coming into the marriage with net worths “exceeding $100 million.” So where is Jolie’s money? One answer is that she simply did not want to divest her assets to buy a new house when she knew that Pitt would almost certainly be obligated to provide her the funds. It should also be noted that between August 2017 and August 2018, Angelina earned $28 million from salary and endorsements which made her the second-highest-paid actress on the planet.
Read More