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Kelly Rowan is a Canadian actress and former fashion model. She portrayed Kirsten Cohen in the first, second, third and fourth seasons of the Fox drama series The O.C..

Biography[]

Early life[]

Kelly Rowan was born October 26, 1965 in Ottawa, Ontario, and is a graduate of Toronto's Northern Secondary School. She left the University of Western Ontario to pursue acting, and studied at the British American Drama Academy in the United Kingdom and at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. While in New York, Rowan worked as a model to earn a living.

Career[]

After studying acting and modeling in New York, Rowan went on to appear in films such as The Gate (1987), Hook (1991), Three to Tango (1999), and One Eight Seven (1997).

Rowan guest-starred in television series such as The Outer Limits, Growing Pains, Da Vinci's Inquest, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Dallas. In 1993, she won a Gemini Award for her work in the television movie Adrift. In 1995–96 she played Matty Shaw, a funeral parlor operator and gun smith, in the TV series Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. In 2002, Rowan guest-starred in four episodes of Boomtown, playing "Marian", the deceived wife of David McNorris (Neal McDonough). In 2003, she was cast as Kirsten Cohen, a loving mother and businesswoman on Fox's teen drama series The O.C.. In 2006, she won a Prism Award for this role. From 2012 to 2015, she starred as Natalie Vincent in the TNT series, Perception.

Her credits as executive producer include the 2008 television film The Good Times Are Killing Me and the 2007 television film She Drives Me Crazy, which was her third project for Lifetime.

Rowan has volunteered as an actress with the Young Storytellers Foundation.

Personal life[]

Rowan announced her engagement to David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet in late June 2007. They broke off their engagement before Rowan, then age 42, gave birth to their daughter on April 28, 2008 in Los Angeles.

Trivia[]

  • Before working together on the show, she and her co-star Melinda Clarke starred together in an episode of the television series CSI. There are only fifteen years of difference between her, and Adam Brody, who in The O.C. portrays Seth, one of the children's of her character Kirsten.
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