Melissa McCarthy

Melissa McCarthy (born August 26, 1970, Plainfield, Illinois, U.S.) is an American actress known for roles that highlight her gift for physical comedy and raunchy one-liners.

McCarthy was brought up on an Illinois farm. After she graduated from high school, she began performing as a stand-up comic in New York City at such notable clubs as Stand Up New York and the Improv. She honed her acting skills at the Actors Studio and appeared in a number of stage productions before moving in the late 1990s to Los Angeles, where she performed (1997–2010) with the Groundlings improv troupe.

McCarthy had bit parts in films and on television before securing her breakout role as Sookie St. James on TV’s Gilmore Girls (2000–07). She was cast in supporting roles in a succession of TV series, including Samantha Who? (2007–09), Rita Rocks (2009), and Private Practice (2010), before landing a starring role opposite Billy Gardell in Mike & Molly (2010–16), which followed humorous moments in the lives of a man and a woman who meet at a Chicago Overeaters Anonymous group and eventually marry. The show, which was coproduced by Chuck Lorre, became a hit with critics and viewers. McCarthy was nominated for numerous Emmy Awards, and she won in 2011.

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With the success of Mike & Molly, McCarthy received more film offers, and in 2012 she earned an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in the raunchy comedy Bridesmaids (2011). Although her size made her an unconventional leading lady by Hollywood standards, McCarthy was soon starring in films that proved her box-office appeal. In 2013 she was cast as an obnoxious scam artist in Identity Thief, and later that year she starred opposite Sandra Bullock in the buddy comedy The Heat, playing a foul-mouthed Boston cop.

McCarthy’s credits from 2014 include the dramedy St. Vincent (2014), which was noted for her sensitive portrayal of a divorcée trying to manage child care for her prepubescent son, and the road-trip comedy Tammy. The latter was written by McCarthy and her husband, Ben Falcone, who also directed; the couple collaborated on numerous films. She then starred as a mousy CIA agent who becomes a superspy and saves the world in Spy (2015). In The Boss (2016) McCarthy portrayed an unscrupulous businesswoman attempting to counteract the stigma of having been convicted of insider trading. Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), a remake of the 1984 classic comedy about hunting spirits and other supernatural creatures, featured McCarthy alongside Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. The film was noted for casting the titular team of wisecracking enforcers as women. (The ghostbusters had been portrayed by men in the original.)

In 2017 McCarthy impersonated Sean Spicer, then White House press secretary for Pres. Donald Trump, in a series of skits on Saturday Night Live, including an episode in which she was the host. For that appearance, McCarthy received an Emmy Award as best guest actress in a comedy series. Her movie roles from 2018 include a recently divorced mother who returns to college to finish her degree in Life of the Party and a detective investigating the murder of puppets in the screwball comedy The Happytime Murders. McCarthy also garnered critical acclaim—and her second Oscar nomination—for her sympathetic portrayal of disgraced celebrity biographer Lee Israel in Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018). In The Kitchen (2019) McCarthy joined an all-star female cast playing a trio of mob wives who take over their husbands’ work in 1970s New York City. She then was cast as a woman who must convince an artificial intelligence not to end humanity in Superintelligence (2020).

McCarthy’s film credits from 2021 include the action-comedy Thunder Force, which centers on two friends who become superheroes and battle genetic mutants, and The Starling, a drama about a woman grieving the death of an infant. That year she also appeared in the miniseries Nine Perfect Strangers, which was based on a novel by Liane Moriarty; McCarthy played an unhappy author who seeks the help of a mysterious guru (Nicole Kidman) at a wellness retreat. In 2022 she starred with Falcone in the TV series God’s Favorite Idiot. The following year McCarthy won raves for her performance as the evil Ursula in a live-action version of The Little Mermaid.

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In addition to her acting, McCarthy founded a fashion line, Seven7, which debuted in 2015. Though the collection was referred to as “plus size,” she took issue with that designation and with the fashion industry’s dictate that sizes 14 and above (a category that encompassed about 70 percent of American women) required special designation. Her line included sizes 4–28. Seven7 closed after several years of production.