Kellie Martin

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Kellie Noelle Martin (born October 16, 1975) is an American television actress.

A native of Riverside, California, Martin loved to perform for her close-knit family. She began her acting career at age seven, when her aunt Rhonda, a nanny for actor Michael Landon's children, helped Martin land a guest spot on the Landon produced series Father Murphy.

Among many roles in motion pictures, made-for-TV movies and television series, she is perhaps most famous for her role as Rebecca "Becca" Thatcher on the drama Life Goes On, which ran on ABC (1989–1993), and for her role as med student Lucy Knight on the NBC drama ER (1998–2000).

In 1994, she starred in her own series, acting alongside Tyne Daly in the CBS period drama Christy. The series was based on a popular religious novel by the author Catherine Marshall and told the story of a young missionary teacher in an isolated community in the Appalachian Mountains. The show was well received and had an avid fan base, but its ratings suffered from being moved around the television schedule in unpredictable time slots.

In 1995, she starred in The Face on the Milk Carton, a TV film based on the book by Caroline Cooney about a teenager who finds out she was kidnapped from her real family 12 years prior and had been raised by the parents of her kidnapper.

In 1997, she starred in the short-lived NBC drama Crisis Center, which lasted only six episodes.

From 1998-2000, Martin appeared on the medical drama E.R. as student Lucy Knight. Martin left the show after her sister's death, as she could not bear to spend so much time in even a fake hospital after being in real ones so much during her sister's illness.

In 2002, Lifetime started a television series, Fiona, based on Warren Adler's The Fiona FitzGerald Mysteries as a starring vehicle for Martin, but it was never aired.

In 2003, Martin starred in Mystery Woman, a Hallmark Channel movie about the owner of a mystery bookshop who solves actual crimes. It proved a popular vehicle for Martin; since 2005 she has gone on to make ten more Mystery Woman movies for Hallmark, two of which she directed.

In 2006 Martin starred in the Lifetime Movie Live Once, Die Twice.

[edit] Personal Life

Martin graduated from Yale University in 2001 with a degree in art history. She was a member of Saybrook College.

She married Keith Christian in May 15, 1999 in his hometown of Polson, Montana. The pair welcomed their first child, a daughter named Margaret Heather Christian, on November 4, 2006; she is named after Martin's sister Heather who died due to lupus erythematosus at age 19.