Kyra Sedgwick: A Phenomenon

What does Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and John Trivolta have in common? Kyra Sedgwick.

This woman is a diverse actress with a leading man list that would make any autograph hound beg. She began at the age of 16 on the daytime popular soap opera Another World. Kyra has played a gambit of character roles, the character Tess from James Clavell’s Ti Pan to Julia Robert’s sister in Something to Talk About.

A New York native, Kyra was born August 19, 1965, and later attended the University of Southern California, where theater and film later led her to the honor of the Theater World Award.

Kyra met her husband, Kevin Bacon, in 1987 while on the set of American Playhouse’s Lemon Sky, in which Kevin costarred. On Christmas Eve, Kevin kneeled when Kyra pulled a ring box from the toe of her Christmas stocking. They were married the next year on September 4, 1988. “I knew instantly I wanted to sleep with her,“ Kevin jokes in a 1998 interview for INSTYLE with Leslie Marshall.

This marriage of some 11 years has produced two children (Travis and Sosie Ruth) and a loving mother who balances career and family life between an apartment on Manhattan’s West Side and weekends at their turn of the century Connecticut farm.

Kyra’s career began in the '80s with television appearances on Amazing Stories and Miami Vice and then dramatic roles in The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains and Born on the Fourth of July. She has progressed to top hits in the '90s. A favorite is Heart & Souls, (1993) with Robert Downey Jr., a poignant comedy with a tearful ending, but this was surpassed by Phenomenon, with John Trivolta.

In the movie Phenomenon, guess how long it took to do that hair cut and shave scene? Would you believe it was from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m? That’s right - 12 hours and the final kiss was cut and ended on the editing floor.

Her tender kiss with actress Helen Mirren in Losing Chase, a drama that appeared on Showtime remained in. “I kissed a guy and I kissed a gal and my lips couldn’t tell the difference,” Kyra revealed in an article Shooting from the Lip by PEOPLE Magazine in 1996.

In that movie Kevin Bacon was the director. Kyra’s cousin was the famous Edie Sedgwick. She was a famous New York leading superstar and a constant companion to the pop artist and film-maker, Andy Warhol. She had played in several of Warhol’s movies but she was probably best known on feature covers of such leading magazines as Time, Life and Vogue.  She had a tragic life.

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