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Marcia Cross posted a very rare selfie to Instagram on Thursday.
The 64-year-old Hollywood actress is not often seen on social media as she has been working less in recent years.
The redheaded beauty from Massachusetts was on some of the top Hollywood series in the 1990s and early 2000s.
She got her start in soap operas such as The Edge of Night, Another World and One Life to Live, then landed a role on the prime-time soap opera Knots Landing.
She won the jackpot when she was cast as the conniving doctor Kimberly Shaw on Melrose Place; she was on the series from 1992 to 1997 as she shared scenes with Heather Locklear and Jack Wagner.
Then she was cast on yet another smash hit series, Desperate Housewives, with Teri Hatcher and Eva Longoria. She played Bree Van de Kamp on the show from 2004 to 2012.
Her last major show was Quantico, where she played President Claire Haas opposite Priyanka Chopra from 2015 until 2017.
See what Cross looks like now in her selfie taken in first class on a recent flight.
Marcia Cross, a big star thanks to Melrose Place and Desperate Housewives, posted a rare selfie on Thursday
The actress, who has been working less in recent years, on Desperate Housewives in 2011
Cross was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts and became interested in acting at an early age.
In grade school, she had a role in a dramatic adaptation of The Witch of Blackbird Pond and studied dance.
The teenager then moved to New York City to attend the prestigious Juilliard to study acting.
After small roles on The Edge of Night and The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James, she played Kate Sanders on One Life to Live.
That was followed by guest starring roles on Who's the Boss?, Quantum Leap, Knots Landing and Cheers.
Cross also had a small role in the hit Rob Lowe and James Spader thriller Bad Influence in 1990.
Then came Melrose Place. She joined the cast in 1992 as a manipulative doctor at Wilshire Memorial Hospital who became a super villain, but she left the show during the fifth season.
Cross has said her character's storylines were 'insane' because she hid a brain tumor and also blew up an apartment complex.
With her Melrose Place co-stars. Top, from left: Doug Savant, Thomas Calabro, Cross and Jack Wagner. Bottom: Kristin Davis, Andrew Shue, Heather Locklear, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Daphne Zuniga, Josie Bissett, Grant Show and Laura Leighton
She played conniving doctor Kimberly Shaw on Melrose Place from 1992 to 1997, sharing scenes with Heather Locklear
One of her storylines was about her brain tumor which she called 'insane'
She also appeared in sitcoms such as Seinfeld, Boy Meets World, Ally McBeal, Spin City and The King of Queens. And she was on the dramas CSI, Strong Medicine, Profiler and Touched by an Angel.
Her films were Always Say Goodbye (1996), Just Peck (2009) and Bringing Up Bobby (2011).
In 2003, Cross was on the TV series Everwood for one season.
Then in 2004, she landed another hit show: Cross was cast as sizzling Bree Van de Kamp in Desperate Housewives.
The show was one of the breakout hits of 2004 and ran for eight seasons until 2012.
In 2004, Cross starred in the role of Bree Van de Kamp in Desperate Housewives
The show was one of the breakout hits of 2004. The series ran for eight seasons until 2012
From left, Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Teri Hatcher, Nicollette Sheridan and Cross
Alongside Vanessa Williams, left, who played Renee Perry
In one episode, Cross's character wore red lingerie to entice her husband
Her character comes undone when Rex suggests they hire a sex surrogate
She has said Desperate Housewives was great for her, but she was 'typecast' after that and could not land another major series.
In 2023, she told Variety: 'I always assumed that after Desperate Housewives, there will be a third act. It has not happened yet. That’s the double-edged sword of being an "icon." Everybody thinks you are that character and by the time they forget about it, you are not on anybody’s list anymore.'
She took two years off, then in 2014, Cross co-starred as the lead character's mother in the comedy pilot Fatrick, which did not take off.
Later, Cross appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
She later joined the cast of the thriller series Quantico, playing the recurring role of President Claire Haas, a former Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Cross posted a selfie on Instagram this week. The 64-year-old Hollywood actress is not often seen on social media
As far as her love life, she dated the much-older actor Richard Jordan until he died from a brain tumor in 1993.
In 2006, she married stockbroker Tom Mahoney, with whom she had fraternal twin daughters.
Then she encountered health issues. In September 2018, Cross revealed she had been in remission for eight months after receiving treatment for anal cancer.
'I found myself in a position where nobody wants this job. Nobody wants to come forward. And I knew that people were suffering and people were ashamed,' she said at the 2019 The Atlantic's People v. Cancer event.
Cross has not worked much in recent years. She also told Variety three years ago that finding work after 60 can be challenging.
'I am at this funny crossroad: I am this incredibly ripe human and yet Hollywood is not particularly interested. We are tackling LGBTQ+ issues, although there is still a long way to go, we are talking about people of color, but – and I hate to say it – we don’t love to see older women. We were 40-year-old women doing DH and that was a big deal. Now, I want to see 60-year-old women.'
She added, 'The one thing you always have to do is endure. Endure the bad times. Nobody wanted to do anything with Van Gogh when he was alive! It’s no small thing, being an artist. It hurts. And you can’t cut it all off.'
English (US) ·