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Biography

Kim Delaney was born on November 29, 1961, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This 5'7" dynamic actress laid low in high school and did not pursue acting or modeling until she was prompted by friends to head to New York, where she eventually studied acting under the tutelage of the renowned Bill Esper. She was a former New York Elite Agency model and a little-known actress until her experience on the daytime soap All My Children from 1981 to 1984, where she played virginal high school sweetheart, Jenny Gardner. After appearances in numerous forgettable B-movies like 1987's Campus Man and 1991's Body Parts, as well as TV's Tales from the Crypt and several episodes of L.A. Law's 1987 season, she got the role of a lifetime on ABC's new police drama, NYPD Blue, in 1995. A subsequent signing with Elite Modeling Agency resulted in cover shots for Glamour and Seventeen, and some acting coaching by Bill Esper proved essential in landing her a three-year stint on All My Children in 1981. Though she would later eschew the small screen in favor of feature work, a lack of desirable roles eventually found brought Delaney back to the small screen for an impressive run on the popular nighttime drama L.A. Law. Television success continued when Delaney received an Emmy for her work as alcoholic detective Diane Russell on the popular prime-time police drama NYPD Blue in 1997, and she would remain with the show until 2001. It seemed Delaney had finally hit her stride in the realm of television, and though she would make a momentary feature departure with a role in Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars (2000), subsequent television roles in the short-lived Philly (in which Delaney took the lead) and CSI: Miami served to prove that she had lost none of her dramatic intensity. In 2003, Delaney could be seen in the dramatic miniseries 10.5.