Kellie Waymire

A prolific and rising character actress with an ability to wear her character's history on her face, Kellie Waymire garnered acclaimed on the stage and was a familiar face on television before her unexpected death at a young age. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Waymire graduated from Southern Methodist University, where she won the Greer Garson Award. She studied theater at Southern Methodist University and earned a master of fine arts degree from the University of California at San Diego. She began her on-screen career in New York in 1994, playing Emily on ABC's soap opera "One Life to Live." Waymire came into her own critically in 1996 when she became the lovable dog "Sylvia" - a part first essayed by Sarah Jessica Parker when the A.R. Gurney play made its debut off-Broadway a year earlier - at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre. The role won Waymire a Drama-Logue Award for Outstanding Performance. "You will want to adopt her and never let her go," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "Waymire indeed steals every scene. She evokes a dog in all its doggy aspects, not literally, by walking on all fours, but figuratively. She quivers with the desire to be loved." The play moved from San Diego to San Francisco's Marines Memorial Theatre and Waymire earned equal raves. Waymire was a regular in respected regional theaters around the country, including the Old Globe in San Diego, the Pasadena Playhouse, the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, La Jolla Playhouse, Circle X Theatre and Antaeus Company in Los Angeles, Seattle Repertory Theater, Milwaukee Repertory and the Rogue Theatre in New York City. The actress appeared in a revival of Noel Coward's "Present Laughter" at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1998, again winning critical praise as a debutante angling to snare her man, and, as her on-screen career took off, she also appeared at Los Angeles productions "On the Jump" and Arthur Miller's "The Man Who Had All the Luck." But television would catapault into a greater degree of recognizability; even if audiences didn't always know the actress' name, Waymire was a familiar face on several popular series. She became a regular television guest star in David E. Kelley productions, including "Ally McBeal," "The Practice" and "Snoops." She appeared on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "The X-Files" and in the 1997 "Seinfeld" episode titled "The Blood." Waymire endeared herself to the devoted legion of "Star Trek" fans first in a 2000 guest stint on "Star Trek: Voyager" and in a recurring role as Crewman Elizabeth Cutler on "Star Trek: Enterprise" (UPN, 2001 -). In the show's first season, she appeared in three episodes: "Strange New World," "Dear Doctor," and "Two Days and Two Nights."as a romantic interest for John Billingsley's alien Doctor Phlox. She also racked up several film credits, including "Playing by Heart" (1998) starring Sean Connery and Gena Rowlands, and "Sunset Strip" (2000). In her best known TV work, she spent six 2002 episodes on HBO's "Six Feet Under" playing Brenda's (Rachel Griffiths) prostitute friend Melissa. In 2003 she starred as spunky mother Liz Pitt in Fox's short-lived sit-com "The Pitts" and played an adoptive mother who has a disastrous visit from prospective parents Chandler and Monica in an episode of "Friends" titled "The One Where Ross is Fine." In November 2003 Waymire had been involved in a stage production of "Kate Crackernuts" at the 24th Street Theatre in Los Angeles, when she died unexpectedly of an undiagnosed illness in her home in Los Angeles' Venice Beach. The cast and crew dedicated the final two performances of the show to the actress.