Kristen Johnston is an American stage, film, and television actress.
She is most famous for her two-time Emmy Award-winning role as Sally Solomon in the television series
3rd Rock from the Sun.
She also starred as Wilma Flintstone in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas.
She stars as Holly Franklin in the sitcom The Exes.
Early life Johnston was born in Washington, D.C.
Johnston was raised mostly in Fox Point, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, where she attended
St. Eugene's Catholic Grade School and Whitefish Bay High School.
She spent some of her teen years in Sweden and in South America.
She earned a B.F.A. degree in drama at New York University.
Career Johnston made her professional stage debut
with New York's Atlantic Theater Company, which was founded by playwright David Mamet.
During her association with that company, she appeared in such productions as As You
Like It, Girl's Talk, Stage Door, Author's Voice, Portrait of a Woman and Rosemary for
Remembrance.
She has performed with the Naked Angels Theater Company in The Stand-In and Hot Keys, and
with New York Stage and Film in Kim's Sister, with David Strathairn and Jane Adams.
For her performance in The Lights at Lincoln Center Theater, Johnston was nominated for
a Drama Desk Award as Best Supporting Actress.
The show brought her to the attention of a Carsey-Werner television executive.
After numerous auditions in 1996 for the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun, she won the
role of Sally Solomon.
She starred in the series from 1996 to 2001 along with John Lithgow, Jane Curtin, French
Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the role earned her two Emmy Awards for best supporting
actress in a comedy series.
Johnston made her feature film debut in The Debt, winner of Best Short at the 1993 Cannes
Film Festival.
In 1995, she played Kate in Backfire!
Other television credits include guest-starring roles on the series Chicago Hope, Hearts Afire,
and The Five Mrs. Buchanan's.
She was also the narrator in Microscopic Milton on the Disney Channel.
Her significant roles in commercially successful movies included Austin Powers: The Spy Who
Shagged Me in 1999, Austin Powers in Goldmember in 2002 and Music and Lyrics in 2007.
In 1998 she was a spokesmodel for the Clairol company, as well as appearing on the Bad Religion's
No Substance album cover.
Johnston appeared in the sixth and final season of Sex and the City.
In the episode entitled "Splat!", her character, Lexi Featherston, an ageing party girl, accidentally
falls out of a window and dies, prompting Carrie Bradshaw to re-examine her life.
In 2005 Johnston featured in six episodes of NBC's ER.
She was cast as Patsy in a proposed American remake of the British TV show Absolutely Fabulous,
but the series was never picked up by a network.
She appeared in a recurring role in the 2009 season of Ugly Betty and had a single episode
appearance as a dominatrix in the second season opener of Bored to Death.
She stars in the TV Land sitcom The Exes, which debuted November 30, 2011.
Personal Since 2009, Johnston has taught acting at
her Alma mater New York University.
Her father is former Wisconsin Republican state senator Rod Johnston.
In her autobiography, Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster, Johnston
discusses an addiction to alcohol and pills that began when she was in high school.
She stated in the 2012 book that she had been sober for five years.
Through her charity SLAM, NYC, she mentors high school girls from New York City with
addiction and self-esteem issues and has been crusading for the city to build a recovery
high school.
Johnston said she was diagnosed in November 2013 with lupus myelitis, which caused her
to miss filming for some episodes of her series The Exes.
A character played by Leah Remini was introduced in season three to cover Johnston's absence.
Filmography Film
Television Stage
Autobiography 2012: Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs
of a Giant Disaster., Gallery Books, ISBN 978-1451635065
References
External links Kristen Johnston at the Internet Broadway
Database Kristen Johnston at the Internet Movie Database
Kristen Johnston official website 2006 Interview with Johnston on Theatre.com
Kristen Johnston Downstage Center interview American Theatre Wing, October 2007