Courtney Thorne-Smith (born November 8, 1967) is an American actress.
Thorne-Smith was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in Menlo Park, a suburb south of the city. Her father was a computer market researcher and her mother was a therapist. They divorced when she was 7 and she lived with both at different stages. Courtney attended Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, California, and graduated from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California, in 1985. She also performed with the Ensemble Theater Company in Mill Valley, California, while attending high school.
In June of 2000, Courtney married a genetic scientist named Andrew Conrad, but they divorced in January of 2001. After meeting him on an airplane, she married Roger Fishman on January 1, 2007. They are expecting their first child in January 2008.
Courtney made her first film appearance in the 1986 feature film drama, Lucas alongside Winona Ryder, Corey Haim, and Charlie Sheen. She was also involved in a number of movies in the late 1980s, such as Summer School (1987), Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987), and Side Out (1990).
Courtney's celebrity, however, would come more from performing on television. She appeared on a few mid-80s television shows such as Fast Times and Growing Pains, as well as made-for-TV movies including The Thanksgiving Promise and Infidelity before landing a regular role in the short-lived sitcom Day by Day with Douglas Sheehan, Linda Kelsey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. In 1990, she was featured in 6 episodes of the very popular TV show LA Law as Kimberly Dugan.
Her first notable television role was playing Alison Parker on the nighttime drama Melrose Place from 1992-1997. She also went on to play Georgia Thomas on Ally McBeal from 1997-2000. In 1999, she became a spokeswoman for Almay cosmetics, being the face of their new line of make-up "Skin Stays Clean." Courtney left the Ally McBeal show because she felt pressured to be so thin that her health was in jeopardy, and also wanted to spend more time with then-new husband Andrew Conrad.
Since 2001, Courtney has starred as Cheryl on the sitcom According to Jim.
She has written a book called Outside In. It is being published by Random House in September 2007. On September 13, 2007, Vanity Fair held a party for Courtney and her new novel in Westwood, California. According to many reviewers of the novel on various websites and publications, the story is very similar to Thorne-Smith's life story.
