Is Kelly Mcgillis, the Star of Top Gun, Still Alive?

Over the course of her 35-year Hollywood career, McGillis has starred in countless films and TV shows, including Top Gun as Maverick’s girlfriend.

This covers her work before Top Gun’s climactic separation between Maverick and Charlie. Her acting experience includes voiceover work as well. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and a British Academy Film Award for her performance in the 1985 film Witness.

When she was a college student in New York City in 1982, years before she played the girlfriend in Top Gun, her life took a turn when she was sexually attacked. Her role as prosecutor Kathryn Murphy in the 1988 blockbuster The Accused, costarring Jodi Foster, was heavily influenced by the sexual assault. Jodie Foster is sexually assaulted in a bar, and Murphy tries to find those responsible.

Fans are curious as to McGillis’s whereabouts and whether or not she is still alive. If you want the whole story, keep reading.

Is Kelly Mcgillis, the Star of Top Gun, Still Alive?

Kelly Ann McGillis is an American actress who was born and raised in the United States. Kelly, who is 64 years old at this point, is still active and healthy.

McGillis hasn’t been acting professionally since she was in Top Gun. She explained her shift in focus in a July 2019 interview, saying, “I believe just my priorities in life changed,” she told in an interview in July 2019. “It wasn’t like a major decision that I made to leave, it was just that other things became more important,” she added.

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Even though McGillis is now a grandma, she is proud to look back on her long and fruitful acting career. She was attacked in her North Carolina home in 2016 by a complete stranger. The woman was found to be culpable for the misdemeanour offence of breaking and entering after additional inquiry.

Almost immediately after the attack, McGillis announced that she had been issued a concealed-carry licence. McGillis presently resides in Hendersonville, North Carolina, and is single. At the moment, she is an acting coach at New York’s Studio for Stage and Screen (NYS3).

Who Is Her Current Husband?

McGillis married fellow Juilliard student Boyd Black in 1979; the couple divorced three years later in 1981. She and her husband, Fred Tillman, wed in 1989 and have since welcomed two children, Kelsey and Sonora.

The couple spent $1.5 million on a 110-foot schooner that was destroyed in a 1996 marina fire in Florida. McGillis and Tillman separated and ultimately filed for divorce in 2002. In an interview published by SheWired in 2012, McGillis came out as a lesbian, making public for the first time a long-kept secret.

In 2010, she wed sales executive Melanie Leis, but by 2011, the couple had already separated. Currently, McGillis calls Hendersonville, North Carolina home.

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Why She Stopped Doing Top Gun Movies?

On May 27, 2022, audiences could finally watch the highly anticipated sequel to Top Gun (1986). The director of Top Gun: Maverick, Joseph Kosinski, has just confirmed that two major characters from the first film will not be returning. Goose’s wife is Carole Bradshaw, and Tom Cruise’s mistress is Charlotte Blackwood.

She claimed that the reason she wasn’t cast in Top Gun 2 was because she refused to get plastic surgery or dye her hair. When asked about her past struggles, she said, “For a long, long time, I truly tried to be something I’m not, and I have to admit, it damaged my life in a lot of ways.”

However, Top Gun’s director Joseph Kosinski has denied this, claiming that he merely wanted to alter the tone and introduce new characters.

“I’m old, and I’m fat,” she said. “And I look age-appropriate for what my age is. And that is not what that whole scene is about. ” I’d much rather feel absolutely secure in my skin and my age than place any value in all that other stuff.”

Who Starred as Chris’s Girlfriend?

Many people who have watched Top Gun: Maverick have confused Jennifer Connelly with Kelly McGillis, who plays Top Gun’s new girlfriend. You can blame the Mandela effect for the widespread belief that Connelly appeared in the original Top Gun, but it’s still surprising how many people hold that opinion.

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There are probably multiple factors at play here. Like McGillis, Jennifer Connelly was a huge star in the 1980s, and her relatable portrayal of the girl next door inspired many iconic fashion moments. But when Top Gun came out, she was just 16 years old and making her acting debut in the film Labyrinth.

As time went on, it could have gotten harder for the audience to tell the two actresses apart. It’s understandable if you’ve forgotten that Jennifer Connelly didn’t appear in the original Top Gun because that film came out 36 years before Top: Gun Maverick. Kelly McGillis’s absence is felt, but Jennifer Connelly’s performance is so convincing that many viewers thought she had been in the original film the whole time.