Kim Delaney

Kim Delaney is an American actress born on November 29, 1961. She is best known for her starring role as Detective Diane Russell on the ABC drama series NYPD Blue, for which she won an Emmy Award. Her career includes early television work on the daytime drama All My Children, as well as lead and recurring roles in television series such as Tour of Duty, Philly, CSI: Miami, Army Wives, and General Hospital.

Delaney was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Joan and Jack Delaney. An Irish American raised Roman Catholic, she grew up as the only daughter alongside four brothers: Ed, John, Keith, and Patrick. Her mother worked as a homemaker, and her father was a senior union official in the United Auto Workers. While attending J. W. Hallahan Catholic Girls High School, she worked as a model for the Elite agency. Following graduation, she moved to New York to pursue modeling and studied acting with William Esper.

Delaney secured her first acting job in August 1981, playing innocent teenager Jenny Gardner Nelson on the soap opera All My Children. She portrayed the character until August 1984, earning a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 1983. After leaving the show, she transitioned into feature films, appearing in That Was Then... This Is Now in 1985 and as a young nun in The Delta Force in 1987. During this period, she also appeared in Christmas Comes to Willow Creek, L.A. Law, and the 1988 thriller The Drifter. In 1988, Delaney joined the cast of the CBS series Tour of Duty as reporter Alex Devlin, remaining on the show until 1989.

During the early 1990s, Delaney appeared in projects such as the television miniseries Lady Boss and the 1994 film The Force. In 1995, she joined NYPD Blue as Detective Diane Russell. Originally slated for a four-episode arc, her role became permanent. For her performance, she earned three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, winning the award in 1997. She was written out of NYPD Blue in 2001 to star in the lead role of the drama series Philly, which aired for one season. She later briefly returned to NYPD Blue for five episodes across its tenth and eleventh seasons.

In 2002, Delaney played the female lead in CSI: Miami, appearing in ten episodes. She subsequently starred in the NBC miniseries 10.5 in 2004 and its 2006 sequel, 10.5: Apocalypse. Her other television credits from this era include a recurring role on The O.C., an episode of Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, and guest appearances on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. From 2007 to 2012, Delaney portrayed main character Claudia Joy Holden on the Lifetime series Army Wives.

In film, Delaney was cast in God Bless the Broken Road, which was released in September 2018. In September 2020, she joined the cast of General Hospital as Jackie Templeton, making her first appearance in October. In her personal life, Delaney has been married three times, including to actor Charles Grant in 1984, actor Joseph Cortese in 1989 with whom she has a son, and James Morgan in 2022.