Lauren Holly

Lauren Holly is an award-winning American actress known for her work on both the big and small screens. At the cinema, she won the MTV Award for Best Kiss along with co-star Jim Carrey in the classic 1994 movie Dumb and Dumber. On television, she won praise for her roles in soaps such as All My Children and Picket Fences and played central roles in shows such as NCIS, Motive, and Designated Survivor. She is also a veteran of many TV movies and was nominated for a Saturn Award for her portrayal of Ethel Kennedy in the 2001 drama, Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot. Her recent roles have included playing Monique Dubois in Tiny Pretty Things and Joanne Kowalski in Family Law.

Holly’s acting career began in the early 1980s when she appeared in two episodes of Hill Street Blues. From 1986 to 1989, she played Julie Chandler in the landmark soap opera, All My Children, winning a Daytime Emmy nomination for her work. In 1992, she was cast as Maxine Stewart in CBS drama series Picket Fences. The show ran for four years and Holly was nominated for a VQT Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. During her time on the show, she also appeared in Dumb and Dumber as Mary Swanson, cementing her place in 1990s Hollywood history. Her other movie successes include playing Mel Gibson’s wife in the box-office smash-hit What Women Want.

In 2021, Holly proved she’s as active as ever, playing Joanne Kowalski in the Canadian legal drama Family Law, which aired in America that fall.