Youth

Nancy McKeon appeared on the soap operas The Secret Storm and Another World. In 1979, she was discovered by a casting director for The Facts of Life on the basis of her performance in a Hallmark advertisement, in which she was able to cry on cue.^[2] She was cast as tomboy Jo Polniaczek in the fall of 1980 during the show's second season after four of the first season's cast were dismissed from the show.^[3] McKeon also provided the voice for many ABC Weekend Special cartoon characters, including the voice for Scruffy.

While she was working on The Facts of Life, McKeon attended school on-set with tutors, having attended Catholic school prior to that. In an interview with Tom Snyder in 1998, she joked that she "was given detention a few times" for not adhering to the strict rules of school, which included not wearing her favorite patent leather shoes.^[4]

Adulthood

Following The Facts of Life, McKeon was courted by NBC executives for the title role in the TV sitcom adaptation of the 1988 film Working Girl; the role, played by Melanie Griffith in the movie, instead went to then unknown Sandra Bullock. In 1994, McKeon and Courteney Cox auditioned for the role of Monica Geller on the sitcom Friends. The role went to Cox. When asked in interviews about the audition, McKeon said, "I have no hard feelings. The role went to the right person. Courteney was brilliant. Now, I can't see anybody playing the role, not even myself."^[5] In 1995, she starred in her own series, Can't Hurry Love, which lasted one season. In 1998, she starred with Jean Smart in the sitcom Style & Substance.

McKeon portrayed Inspector Jinny Exstead on the Lifetime police drama The Division from 2001 to 2004, with her pregnancy incorporated into the storyline of the last year of the series. From 2009 to 2010, she appeared in a recurring role in the Disney Channel Original Series Sonny with a Chance as Connie Munroe, the mother of Demi Lovato's title character.^[6]

McKeon starred in numerous made-for-TV movies in the 1980s and 1990s, including A Cry for Help: The Tracey Thurman Story, in which she portrayed the title role of Tracey Thurman, and The Wrong Woman, portraying a woman framed for killing her boss. In Strange Voices, she portrayed a woman with schizophrenia. She produced many of these movies through her film company, Forest Hills Entertainment (named after her childhood neighborhood, Forest Hills).^[2]

McKeon carefully researched roles and characters. For her role in The Division, she spent time with a police force, while for her role in Strange Voices, she spoke with patients about the condition to prepare for her role. In an interview with John Tesh, she said, "What's really interesting is that I find that people are very forthcoming to actors. I mean, almost more forthcoming than they are to priests or shrinks, because they somehow feel that their story is going to be out there in someway...But, once you get into talking with them and finding out about their world, it's fascinating and it's heartbreaking at the same time."^[7]

In 1999, she wrote and directed her own short film, A Wakening. She explained on the TV show Biography that directing had always been a personal ambition, so she wrote the movie in order to direct. The film won two film festival awards.^[8] She also directed two episodes of The Division.

In 2003, McKeon starred in the film Comfort and Joy. In 2018, McKeon was announced as one of the celebrities to compete on season 27 of Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with professional dancer Valentin Chmerkovskiy,^[9] and was the third celebrity eliminated.

McKeon has narrated several audiobooks.^[10]

She has a brief cameo appearance in 2019's You Light Up My Christmas, a movie starring her Facts of Life co-star Kim Fields. The movie includes other cast members from the show. McKeon was supposed to have a larger role in the movie, but was unable to film more due to a family emergency.^[11] Also in 2019, McKeon announced on social media her involvement in a new, planned Amazon series based on the Lauren Oliver young adult novel Panic.^[12] The first season premiered in 2021.

Film

Television