Kathleen Quinlan has appeared in a wide variety of roles during her five decades in Hollywood, but fans of the drama Family Law will know her best as Lynn Holt. On the CBS series, the actor played a lawyer who was left by her husband and partner and had to start her own law firm from scratch. Family Law lasted for three seasons, from 1999 to 2002.
Before and after Family Law, Quinlan has had a successful career in movies and on TV. She began acting in the early 1970s, went on to appear in many popular shows, and even received an Oscar nomination in 1996. Today, she's still working, as well as spending time with her family on her California ranch. Read on to find out more about the former TV lawyer's life today.
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She got her start in an iconic teen movie.
Ron Bull/Toronto Star via Getty ImagesQuinlan's first credited role was in the 1973 movie American Graffiti, in which she played Peg. The movie did some casting at her high school, and she was one student who made the cut. Around the same time, she also appeared on the series Emergency!, Police Woman, Kojak, and The Waltons, among others.
In addition to Family Law, Quinlan is best known for roles in 1977's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama, and 1995's Apollo 13, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She's still acting today.
Pool BENAINOUS/DUCLOS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesQuinlan has acted consistently throughout her career. Some of her more recent projects include the TV shows How to Get Away with Murder and Runaways, and the movies The Stairs and Walking with Herb. She also acts on stage.
Quinlan shared how she decided to be a professional actor with Smashing Interviews in 2014: She acted in high school, then college, and just kept going.
"[I]t was quite naïve on my part, and I said, 'Oh, I don’t know what else I’m going to do, so maybe I’ll move to Los Angeles and work as an actor,'" Quinlan explained. "It just kind of started from there because they had done American Graffiti at my high school, and that kind of gave me a ticket in. But when I realized it was a medium where you could reach people in some way, touch people’s lives in some way, then I thought that was really pretty exciting."
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She's a mom.
Quinlan has been married to actor Bruce Abbott since 1994, and they have a son together, Tyler Quinlan Abbott. She also has a stepson, Dalton Abbott. In a 2020 interview with Closer, Quilan shared, "Those boys mean everything to me. If I fail at that, I may as well not have been here." She also said of Tyler, "My son Tyler is an all-around artist and working as an actor, which he resisted for a long time because it’s what his parents did." In recent years, Tyler has appeared on episodes of Westworld and The Rookie.
She's worked with her husband.
Quinlan and Abbott met when they were making the 1989 movie Trapped. Then, several years after they were married, Abbott appeared on four episodes of Family Law.
"Some actors are very self-centered, and Bruce is not that way at all," Quinlan told Closer of her husband. "He’s very generous, supportive and has a great sense of humor. It was hard at one point because he was working a lot less than me, but our focus was our kids." She also shared that they enjoy their life together on their ranch. "Bruce and I live on a beautiful ranch near Ojai, California. My thinking is, if I’m not going to work so much, at least I’ll have work to do on the ranch!"
