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Meg Tilly (born February 14 1960) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress, Broadway stage dancer and ballerina.
Tilly was born Margaret E. Chan in Long Beach, California,[1] the third of four children of Harry Chan, a Chinese-American used car salesman, and Patricia Tilly, a schoolteacher. Following her parents divorce when she was three, she was raised by her mother and stepfather, John Ward, in British Columbia, Canada. Tilly graduated from Esquimalt High School in Victoria, British Columbia. She has two sisters: Rebecca, and actress Jennifer Tilly (born 1958).
As a teen, she was involved with the Connecticut Ballet Company, as well as the Throne Dance Theatre, and made her screen debut with Alan Parker's Fame in 1980. A serious back injury forced her to give up dance, and she entered the field of acting, appearing in Hill Street Blues, The Big Chill, and Psycho II before appearing in Agnes of God, for which she was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe Award for her performance. She later appeared in Valmont, Girl in a Swing, and Leaving Normal. Tilly also appeared in Body Snatchers, in which she delivered a pessimistic monologue in the stylings of an alien.
Tilly has also written a novel entitled Singing Songs, comprising a series of vignettes about a young girl whose stepfather molests her and her sisters. She also has a second novel entitled Gemma which came out in October 2006. Gemma is entirely fictional but Tilly has confirmed that Singing Songs, is autobiographical.
According to Tilly's book Singing Songs, which she later confirmed was autobiographical, her mother was a very unorthodox parent. The book also alleges that she was sexually abused by her stepfather.
Tilly now has three children: Emily (born 1984) and David (born 1986), by her marriage to film producer Tim Zinnemann, which ended in 1989, and a son, Will (born 1990), from her five-year relationship with British actor Colin Firth. Her second husband, John Calley, was 30 years her senior. He is a former president of Sony Pictures; they were married in 1995 and divorced in 2002.
Now remarried and living in British Columbia, Tilly has not appeared in a film since 1995, having decided to retire from acting in order to raise her children.
Academy of Science Ficton, Fantasy, and Horror Films, USA