Cady McClain is a three-time Emmy© Award-winning actress who began her professional acting career at the age of nine years old, working with respected directors Herbert Ross, Richard Benjamin, Marvin Chomsky and John Erman. McClain won Emmy© Awards for her roles on All My Children, As the World Turns, and Days of Our Lives. According to Deadline, she has made history as the first woman to win a Daytime Emmy© for three different characters on three different daytime series.
Studio films include My Favorite Year (opposite Peter O'Toole, directed by Richard Benjamin) and Pennies From Heaven (opposite Bernadette Peters, directed by Herb Ross). Starring roles in independent films include Home Movie (opposite Adrian Pasdar, directed by Christopher Denham, released through IFC), Alma Mater (opposite Will Lyman, directed by Hans Canosa and written by Gabrielle Zevin), Soldier's Heart (directed by Brian Delate), and Simple Justice (opposite Doris Roberts and Cesar Romero, directed by Deborah Del Prete). Television credits include two episodes of Law and Order SVU (first opposite Amanda Seyfried, Mariska Hargitay, and Michael O'Keefe, recently opposite Ice T and Kevin Kane), Cheers (opposite Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson), and St. Elsewhere (five episodes opposite Christina Pickles). She has shared the screen with many other luminaries, including Michael McKean, Ann Margaret, Olympia Dukakis, and River Phoenix.
McClain has also enjoyed performing in various Off-Broadway shows in New York City. Memorable productions include David Ives' The Red Address (opposite Kevin Anderson) at Second Stage Theater, Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at Lincoln Center Theater, A Comedy of Errors (opposite Erik Jensen) at the Hudson Guild Theater, and Barefoot in the Park at the Westbury and Valley Forge Music Fair theaters in the round. She has also performed in two one-woman performance art pieces: Mona7 (Producers Club) and Inventions of Farewell (HERE Theatre).
Other work includes writing, directing, and producing. She has produced three feature films - the documentary Seeing is Believing: Women Direct (which she also edited and directed, distributed by Collective Eye, now on Kanopy), Angie: Lost Girls (Lifetime), and How We Got Away With It (distributed by Devolver). Her memoir Murdering My Youth has garnered over 100 five stars reviews on Amazon and was featured on Entertainment Tonight as well as TV Guide Magazine. She has been honored with two Emmy© nominations for her work directing episodes of the web series Venice the Series and has directed three award-winning short narrative films. Her short documentary Burnt Feathers, Broken Wings won Best Impact Film at the Santa Fe Film Festival and Best Short at the Mystic Film Festival, which she made as an Ambassador for Kids in the Spotlight, a film program for Los Angeles foster youth. She is currently the Artistic Director of Axial Theater, a nomadic theater company focusing on socially driven theatrical works.