Kate McNeil Biography

Fast Facts

• Best known for performing the main female character Melanie Parker in the horror movie “Monkey Shines,” starring Jason Beghe and John Pankow in 1988
• Before becoming an actress, she earned a master’s degree in special education from California State University, Northridge
• She is the daughter of the president of the U․S․ Cocoa Corporation company, and in 1987, she married stage manager Roy Friedland and had two children
• She performed the character of Katherine Blakely in the episode “The Thin Red Line” of the police procedural television series “The Mentalist” in 2008