Nancy Justine McKeon (born April 4, 1966) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Jo Polniaczek on the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life and Jinny Exstead on The Division.
Early life and family
Nancy Justine McKeon was born on April 4, 1966, in Westbury, New York, to Barbara McKeon and travel agent Donald McKeon. She began her entertainment career by modeling baby clothing for the Sears & Roebuck catalog at age two. During some of her childhood, the family resided in Forest Hills, New York in Queens. 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. 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.
Adulthood
In 1990, 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. 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.
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). She also directed two episodes of The Division.
In 2003, McKeon starred in the film Comfort and Joy.
McKeon has narrated several audiobooks.
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. 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. The first season premiered in 2021.
Personal life
thumb|McKeon, Michael J. Fox, Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan
While McKeon was on The Facts of Life, she and her parents were granted a private audience with Pope John Paul II. She described the experience to interviewer Tom Snyder in 1998 as "electric," explaining, "In every rendering of every artist, you see this aura that's painted around figures...He has that in life." A private pair seeking to keep the event small, the two only had 20 guests at the wedding.