Best known for portraying Lorraine Baines in the iconic Back to the Future trilogy, Lea Thompson is an American actress, TV producer and director. She is also famous for playing the title character in Caroline in the City, the 1990s hit NBC sitcom, and for countless other movies including Red Dawn, Howard the Duck, All the Right Moves, The Beverly Hillbillies and Some Kind of Wonderful. She also starred as Kathryn Kennish in ABC family series Switched at Birth from 2011 to 2017.

Born in Rochester, Minnesota, Thompson was a talented ballet dancer as a child and won scholarships to several prestigious dance schools including the American Ballet Theatre. Whilst dancing professionally with American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company she was told she was the wrong build to become prima ballerina by artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov, and she decided to not waste any more years pursuing a career in ballet and refocussed on acting.

After moving to New York to follow her new dream of becoming an actress, she made her movie debut in Jaws 3-D in 1983. Two years later she landed the role of a lifetime playing the mother of Marty McFly (played by Michael J.Fox) in the legendary Back to the Future trilogy.

Thompson continued to appear in film roles throughout the 80’s and 90’s, and also found more success in the leading role in NBC’s Caroline in the City, receiving a People’s Choice Award in 1996. She has remained in-demand as an actress throughout the last decade, starring in ABC Family’s Switched at Birth and in the 2017 movie Little Women as Marmee March.