Beverlee McKinsey
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| Beverlee McKinsey | |
 Beverlee McKinsey as Alexandra Spaulding in Guiding Light, 1992. |
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| Born | August 9, 1940 (age 66) McAlester, Oklahoma, USA |
| Notable roles | Iris Cory Carrington on Another World Alexandra Spaulding on Guiding Light |
Beverlee McKinsey (born August 9, 1940 in McAlester, Oklahoma) is an American actress.
[edit] Career
McKinsey started her career in off Broadway theater, often appearing alongside fellow daytime alumni James Earl Jones and Doris Belack.
After several appearances in episodic television shows in the late 1960s, she landed her first contract role as Julie Richards on Love is a Many Splendored Thing in 1970.
She made a brief appearance as Emma Frame on Another World in May 1972. Her appearance so impressed the then-head writer of Another World, Harding Lemay, that he subsequently cast her in a drastically different role from dowdy Emma - that of manipulative, scheming Iris Cory. McKinsey played that role from December 1972 to July 1980, and also played Iris on Another World spinoff Texas from August 1980 to November 1981. During much of her tenure on Another World, McKinsey's portrayal of Iris was part of an unconventional triangle - the character was trying to break up her father and his new wife. When she appeared on Texas, she was given starring billing in the show's opening credits.
After leaving the cast of Texas in late 1981, McKinsey was wooed back to daytime by former Texas producer Gail Kobe to Guiding Light, which Kobe was now producing. McKinsey played powerful Alexandra Spaulding on Guiding Light from 1984 until 1992.
McKinsey's exit from Guiding Light proved to be quite dramatic in its own right: leaving on a planned six-week vacation, McKinsey informed Procter & Gamble that she did not intend to return to the show. She had had an "out clause" meaning she could quit the show by giving six weeks' notice, a clause that even executive producer Jill Farren Phelps was unaware of.
Soap Opera Digest calls McKinsey one of the finest actresses ever to work on soap operas.
In 2006, Procter & Gamble began making several of its soaps available through America Online's AOL Video service, downloadable free of charge. Reruns of Texas episodes featuring McKinsey began with the show's first episode in August 1980.
[edit] Personal life
Her son, Scott McKinsey, is a director on the soap opera General Hospital (on which she briefly appeared in 1994).
She has so far resisted all entreaties to return to daytime television. After some health issues, including a kidney transplant, McKinsey has retired to Southern California and makes few public appearances. Soap columnist Michael Logan has famously described McKinsey as "[making] Greta Garbo look like a chatterbox!"
