Bio
Kristen Johnston is an American actress best known for her starring role as Sally Solomon in the television sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, from 1996-2001.
She currently stars as Holly Franklin, a divorce attorney and landlord to three of her former clients, who happen to share the apartment across the hall from her own, in the television sitcom The Exes, since 2011.
She also starred as Wilma Flintstone in the sequel to the live-action movie adaptation of The Flintstones animated series.
Johnston was raised mostly in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she 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.
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.
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 appeared in the series from 1996-2001. She was nominated for the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a comedy Series for three successive years (1997-1999), winning in 1997 and 1999.
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 ageing 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).
In 2005, Johnston featured in six episodes of the medical drama series ER.
After two years she returned to the screen in the 2007 feature film Music and Lyrics, and guest starred in three episodes of the animated series Kim Possible, voicing the role of Warmonga.