Kyra Sedgwick

Kyra Sedgwick is an American actress and producer whose four-decade career has produced multiple American film and TV roles, including her seven-season role as Brenda Leigh Johnson on TNT's The Closer (2005–2012). She was born Kyra Minturn Sedgwick on August 19, 1965, in New York City, into the Sedgwick literary-and-arts family — her father Henry Dwight Sedgwick V was a venture capitalist, and her great-grandmother was the Massachusetts Sedgwick family novelist Catharine Sedgwick. She studied acting at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Southern California.

Her film career began at age 16 with the 1982 film War and Love (TV movie). She continued working steadily through the late 1980s and 1990s in supporting and lead roles: the 1989 Born on the Fourth of July (opposite Tom Cruise), the 1992 Singles (Cameron Crowe's 1992 Seattle-grunge-era romantic comedy), the 1995 Something to Talk About, the 1996 Phenomenon (opposite John Travolta), and the 2003 Secondhand Lions.

Her role came in 2005 as Brenda Leigh Johnson on TNT's The Closer (2005–2012). The seven-season police-procedural drama — set in the Los Angeles Police Department — featured Sedgwick as the Atlanta-bred Deputy Chief of the LAPD's Major Crimes Unit. Her Southern-accented interrogation style, her candy-and-pen-chewing nervous habits, and the show's procedural format made the Brenda Leigh Johnson one of the American TV-procedural lead performances of the late 2000s. The show's 2010 Emmy Award win for Sedgwick (Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series) made her one of the American TV award winners of that decade.

She has been married to American actor Kevin Bacon since 1988 — making them one of the longest-married American Hollywood couples. The couple has two children. She has continued to work selectively across film and TV into her late fifties, including the 2024 Apple TV+ comedy Lessons in Chemistry and the 2024 indie film The Boys in the Boat.

Her name Kyra is the modern American spelling variant of Kira (from the Russian feminine of Cyrus, ultimately from the Old Persian Kūruš). Kyra has been continuously among the most-popular American girls' names for decades.