| Nancy McKeon  AKA Nancy Justine McKeon
Born: 4-Apr-1966
Birthplace: Westbury, NY
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Jo on The Facts of Life Nancy McKeon got her first modeling job at the age of two. Her parents had been unable to find a babysitter, so they brought the child along to her four-year-old brother's photo shoot for the Sears catalog, and the photographer decided to use both children. Her brother, Philip McKeon, later played Linda Lavin's son on the sitcom Alice. In 1980, when she was 14, Nancy was spotted by Brandon Tartikoff in a commercial for Hallmark cards. Tartikoff, then President of NBC, reportedly wrote a memo strongly suggesting that a struggling sitcom, The Facts of Life, fire Molly Ringwald (then an unknown) and replace her with McKeon.
As the tomboy Jo Polniaczek, McKeon was the missing ingredient that turned that struggling sitcom into a longrunning hit. She later co-starred in a quickly-cancelled sitcom called Can't Hurry Love, and played Inspector Jinny Exstead in The Division, a female-centric cop show on Lifetime TV. Actor Alex Rocco played her father on all three programs. As a child actor, McKeon's most memorable role outside The Facts of Life was in a 1980 ABC Afterschool Special, "Schoolboy Father," wherein Rob Lowe got Dana Plato knocked up at summer camp.
As an adult, McKeon has been confined mostly to Lifetime TV and a few minor films. In the 1992 TV movie Baby Snatcher, McKeon's newborn child was stolen by a deranged Veronica Hamel. She played a determined TV reporter in the 2004 schlock TV movie Category 6: Day of Destruction, and in the Lifetime movie Comfort & Joy, a car wreck propelled McKeon into a weird time loop where she lived the same ten years over and over again.
Not wanting to be typecast as Jo, she declined to participate in the 2001 Facts of Life Reunion. She did suggest to the producers, however, that she would be willing to direct a Facts of Life reunion, if the story involved having the other girls gather for Jo's funeral. She says she never watches the show in reruns.
Father: Donald McKeon
Mother: Barbara McKeon (chronic care nurse)
Brother: Philip McKeon (actor)
Boyfriend: Michael J. Fox (actor, dated mid 1980s)
Boyfriend: Michael Damian (actor, dated late 1980s)
Boyfriend: Luc Robitaille (hockey player, dated early 1990s)
Husband: Marc Andrus (m. 2003)
Daughter: Aurora
TELEVISION
Sonny with a Chance Connie Munroe (2009-10)
The Division Inspector Jinny Exstead (2001-04)
Style & Substance Jane Sokol (1998)
Can't Hurry Love Annie O'Donnell (1995-96)
The Facts of Life Jo (1980-88)
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Wild Hearts (8-Jul-2006) · Emily
Category 6: Day of Destruction (14-Nov-2004)
Comfort and Joy (2003) · Jane Berry
Just Write (Mar-1997) · Bride
In My Sister's Shadow (1997)
Teresa's Tattoo (Mar-1994)
Love, Honor & Obey: The Last Mafia Marriage (23-May-1993)
Where the Day Takes You (11-Sep-1992)
Baby Snatcher (3-May-1992)
A Cry for Help: The Tracey Thurman Story (2-Oct-1989)
Strange Voices (19-Oct-1987)
Poison Ivy (10-Feb-1985)
High School USA (16-Oct-1983)
Please Don't Hit Me, Mom (20-Sep-1981)
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