Nancy McKeon

Nancy McKeon is an American actress known for her role as Jo Polniaczek in the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life and as Jinny Exstead in The Division, a Lifetime police drama. Born in Westbury, New York, she started in entertainment as a baby model and acted on the soap operas The Secret Storm and Another World. A casting director for The Facts of Life discovered her through a Hallmark advertisement, and she joined the show in 1980 as the tomboy Jo. She voiced characters for ABC Weekend Special cartoons. Her other television work included the sitcoms Can't Hurry Love and Style & Substance, and she starred in made-for-TV movies such as A Cry for Help: The Tracey Thurman Story and Strange Voices. She wrote and directed the short film A Wakening, which won festival awards, and earned Young Artist Awards for her work on The Facts of Life and The Facts of Life Goes to Paris (1982).