Christina Applegate

Christina Applegate (born November 25, 1971) is an American actress. She gained recognition in the late 1980s for playing Kelly Bundy in the Fox sitcom Married... with Children (1987–1997). For her titular role in the sitcom Jesse (1998–2000), she earned her first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. For her guest role in the NBC sitcom Friends (2002–2003), she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. She received additional Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her roles in the television sitcom Samantha Who? (2007–2009) and the dark tragicomedy series Dead to Me (2019–2022), and also starred in the short-lived sitcom Up All Night (2011–2012). Applegate served as a producer of all three aforementioned projects.

Applegate has also achieved success in films of varying genres, particularly in comedies such as Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991), The Big Hit (1998), The Sweetest Thing (2002), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013), Hall Pass (2011), Vacation (2015), Bad Moms (2016), and Crash Pad (2017). On stage, Applegate received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her debut performance as the title character in the Broadway musical revival Sweet Charity (2005).

After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021, Applegate announced she would step away from appearing on screen, but would continue doing voice work.

Applegate was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Her father, Robert William "Bobby" Applegate (1942–2025), was a staff producer at Dot Records; her mother, Nancy Priddy, is a singer and actress. She was named after the Andrew Wyeth painting Christina's World, for which her mother also named a song on her album You've Come This Way Before. Her parents separated shortly after her birth and Christina was raised by her mother. She has two half-siblings, Alisa and Kyle, from her father's second marriage. As a child, Applegate trained as a dancer in various styles, including jazz and ballet.

Applegate made her television debut in 1972 alongside her mother in the soap opera Days of Our Lives and starred in a commercial for Playtex baby bottles at 3 months old. She made her film debut in the 1981 horror film Jaws of Satan (or King Cobra) and appeared in the 1981 movie Beatlemania. She debuted as a young Grace Kelly in the television biopic Grace Kelly (1983) and appeared in her first television series in Showtime's political comedy Washingtoon (1985), in which she played a congressman's daughter.

Applegate was a guest in the series Father Murphy (1981), Charles in Charge (1984–1985), and Silver Spoons (1986). In 1986, she won the role of Robin Kennedy, a policeman's daughter, in the police drama series Heart of the City (1986–1987). For her performance, she received a Young Artist Award. She guest-starred in several television series, including All Is Forgiven, Still the Beaver, Amazing Stories, and Family Ties.

From 1987 to 1997, Applegate played the ditzy, sexually promiscuous daughter, Kelly Bundy, on Fox's first sitcom, Married... with Children. While working on the series, Applegate was seen in Dance 'til Dawn (1988) and Streets (1990), in which a teenage drug addict is stalked by a psychotic police officer. She guest-starred in 21 Jump Street (1988) and Top of the Heap (1991) and hosted Saturday Night Live (1993) and MADtv (1996). The character of Sue Ellen Crandell in the black comedy feature Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) was Applegate's first starring role in a mainstream film, playing a rebellious teenager who is forced to take care of siblings after their summer babysitter dies. She had roles in films such as Vibrations (1995), Across the Moon (1995), Wild Bill (1995), Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), and Gregg Araki's Nowhere (1997). Contrary to reports, she did not audition for Titanic, as she told Vanity Fair in their May 2023 edition: “No. Who said that?…That would not have come across my desk, if I had a desk.” [Shaw, Vanity Fair, May 4, 2023.] When Married... with Children was cancelled in 1997, producers pitched a spinoff centered on Kelly Bundy, but Applegate declined.

In 1998, Applegate starred as Claudine Van Doozen in the independent feature Claudine's Return (or Kiss of Fire), appeared in the action-comedy The Big Hit and played the fiancée of a mob boss in the Mafia satire Jane Austen's Mafia.