Celebrity Nooz: Linda Kelsey

Linda Kelsey (Actress) - Lou Grant

Updated: 3/20/23

Name: Linda Kelsey

Birth Name: Linda Jean Kelsey

Born: July 28, 1946 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Claim To Fame: Linda Kelsey is an American actress best known for her role as Billie Newman on the CBS drama television series Lou Grant (1977-1982), which earned her three Golden Globe Award nominations and five Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

Family Life: Kelsey married actor William Grivna in 1971; they divorced in 1973. In 1979, she married carpenter turned computer programmer Glenn Strand; they have two children.

Info: Born to her parents Mary Elizabeth Gray and Clive Gale Kelsey.

In 1968, Kelsey graduated from the University of Minnesota.

Soon after graduating, she began a fellowship at the renowned Guthrie Theater Company in Minneapolis.

Trivia: Kelsey's professional career began with stage appearances in her home of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Played a car-crash victim in the very first episode of Emergency! (1972).

Her first recognizable role came with an appearance on an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show as a rival to Sue Ann Nivens (played by Betty White), where she met Ed Asner, with whom she later worked on the spin-off show Lou Grant.

Her big break came when producers of the television series Lou Grant decided that the actress playing the female reporter on the show was too young and perky. After three episodes, they recast the part with Kelsey in the role of Billie Newman, the crusading reporter for the fictional Los Angeles Tribune, which also co-starred Asner. Kelsey won five consecutive Emmy Award nominations (1978 through 1982) for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, losing four times to her Lou Grant co-star Nancy Marchand and once to Kristy McNichol in Family.

She was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film (three nominations from 1979 to 1981) for Lou Grant.

She also made several appearances on the various iterations of the Pyramid (game show), including assisting a contestant in winning $100,000 on May 5, 1987.

Six years after Lou Grant went off the air, Kelsey played the lead in the sitcom Day by Day (1988) as a woman who runs a daycare center out of her home. The show ran for two seasons.

Kelsey was also nominated for a CableACE Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series (1993) for Sessions.

In 2004, Kelsey returned to her native Twin Cities area, where she has continued her career in regional theater productions.

In 2009, she revisited her television past, playing Sue Ann Nivens for a week in a Minneapolis theatre company's restaging of The Mary Tyler Moore Show scripts, including the episode in which she originally appeared.

Where Are They Now: Kelsey is still performing. These days, she's on stage much more than she's on the screen, but hopefully we will see her back on the small screen soon. It would be wonderful to see her again.

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