Ally Sheedy is an actress who is most noted for her roles in the famous "Brat Pack" films of the 1980's.
Born Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy, daughter of a literary agent in New York, she began making TV commercials and appearing on the stage at age 15. She was an author at an early age, publishing several articles in the New Yorker and a children's book, called She Was Nice to Mice.
After high school, she appeared in television films while she she attended the University of California.
She began her feature film career at 21, opposite Sean Penn in Bad Boys and Matthew Broderick in War Games, both in 1983. She made her name in the notorious "Brat Pack" in 1985 after appearing in John Hughes' The Breakfast Club and Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire.
Sheedy appeared to squander her success from those films on disappointing performances in such bombs as Maid To Order and by the early 1990's she had slipped into obscurity.
Her career was revived in 1998 with a critically acclaimed performance as a drug-addicted lesbian photographer in the film High Art. Sheedy reinvented herself via edgier roles in indy films such as Allison Anders' 1999 Sugar Town. In addition to her film work, she has worked in the theatre, most notably taking over John Cameron Mitchell's title role in the stage version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, about a troubled but charismatic German singer with gender identity problems.