Kristen Johnston

Biography:  Kristen A. Johnston is an American Emmy Award-winning stage, film, and television actress. She may be most famous for her Emmy Award winning role as Sally Solomon in the television series 3rd Rock from the Sun. She also starred as Wilma Flintstone in the sequel to the live-action movie adaptation of The Flintstones animated series. Kristen Johnston is also known for her tall 6\' (1.83 m) frame and relatively deep voice for an actress. In 2005, Johnston was also featured in six episodes of NBC\'s ER. She has recently been cast as Patsy in the American version of the hit British TV show, Absolutely Fabulous. Early life Johnston was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of a real estate agent and a Republican state senator from Wisconsin. Johnston is of English descent and was raised mostly in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She attended St. Eugene\'s Catholic Grade School and graduated from Whitefish Bay High School, although she spent some of her teen years as an exchange student in Sweden and in South America. She earned a B.F.A. degree in drama at New York University. Career Johnston made her professional stage debut with New York\'s Atlantic Theater Company, which was founded by playwright David Mamet. During her association with that company, she appeared in such productions as As You Like It, Girl\'s Talk, Stage Door, Author\'s Voice, Portrait of a Woman, and Rosemary for Remembrance. Now in addition to her stage and film career, she also teaches at the Atlantic Acting School in NYC. In addition, she performed with the Naked Angels Theatre Company in The Stand-In and Hot Keys, and with New York Stage and Film in Kim\'s Sister, with David Strathairn and Jane Adams. For her performance in The Lights at Lincoln Center Theatre, Johnston was nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Best Supporting Actress. The show brought her to the attention of a Carsey-Werner television executive. After numerous auditions in 1996 for the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun, she won the role of Sally Solomon, the alien lieutenant and security officer posing as a sexy female human in Ohio. She starred in the series from 1996-2001 along with John Lithgow, Jane Curtin, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Johnston made her feature film debut in The Debt, winner of Best Short at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. In 1995, she played Kate in Backfire. Other television credits include guest-starring roles on the series Chicago Hope, Hearts Afire, and The Five Mrs. Buchanans. She was also the narrator in Microscopic Milton on the Disney Channel. Her significant roles in commercially-successful movies included Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me in 1999 and Austin Powers in Goldmember in 2002. In 1998, she was a spokesmodel for the Clairol company, as well as appearing on the Bad Religion\'s No Substance album cover. Johnston appeared in the sixth and final season of Sex and the City. In the episode entitled "Splat!", she plays Lexi Featherston, an aging party girl. After the character accidentally falls out of a window and dies, Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) reexamines her life and decides to move to Paris with Aleksandr Petrovsky (played by Mikhail Baryshnikov).