Melissa Suzanne George (born 6 August 1976) is an Australian actress. A former national rollerskating champion and model, George began her acting career playing Angel Parrish in the Australian soap opera Home and Away (1993–1996). After moving to the United States, George made her feature debut with a supporting role in Dark City (1998). She followed this with parts in The Limey (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001), Sugar & Spice (2001), and Down with Love (2003).
George made the transition to leading roles when she appeared as Kathy Lutz in the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror. She followed this with a succession of films in the thriller and horror genres, such as Derailed (2005), Turistas (2006), WΔZ (2007), 30 Days of Night (2007), Triangle (2009), A Lonely Place to Die (2011), and Felony (2013).
On television, George has had recurring roles on Friends (2003), Alias (2003–2004), Grey's Anatomy (2008–2009) and The Good Wife (2013–2014), and a starring role on the NBC medical drama Heartbeat (2016). She received a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Laura Hill on HBO's In Treatment (2008). In 2010, she appeared as Clara Musso on the Fox crime drama series Lie to Me. She also starred in the Australian miniseries The Slap (2011), for which she received a Logie Award, and in the BBC spy series Hunted (2012). In 2015, she appeared in the American adaptation of The Slap, playing the same character—Rosie—that she played in the previous version. She played Diane Hagerty on Hulu's The First in 2018, and Margot on the Apple TV+ series The Mosquito Coast between 2021 and 2023.
Early life
George was born on in Perth, Western Australia, to Pamela, a nurse, and Glenn George, a construction worker. She is of Scottish descent. William Ward, a grandfather on her mother's side, worked as a prison warden at Rottnest Island, offshore from Perth. The second of four children, she is also a cousin of the opera singer Taryn Fiebig.
George attended Warwick Senior High School and developed an interest in dancing and began studying jazz, tap, ballet, and modern dance at the age of seven. Her enthusiasm for dance eventually evolved into a passion for artistic roller skating. She is an Australian national roller skating champion and won bronze medals in the National Championships in 1989 and 1990. She won a silver medal at the Junior World Championship in 1991.
Career
1992–1998: Early work
George began modelling in her early teens, and in 1992 was named Western Australia's Teenage Model of the Year. At the age of 16, George and a friend, Cara Mitchinson, both acted in a mock episode of the popular Australian soap Home and Away with a video camera, playing Bobby and Sophie Simpson, respectively. When the offer of a role on the serial came, George's parents convinced her to relocate from her native Perth to Sydney and she began lodging with families. George met with casting director Liz Mullinar and was subsequently cast in the role of Angel Parrish. She made her first on-screen appearance on 30 March 1993, arriving as a teenage runaway. While playing the role, George made property investments and wrote advice columns for two English teen magazines.
Her role earned her five consecutive Logie Award nominations, of which she won two. The character became popular among viewers when she was paired up with Shane Parrish, and to this day they remain one of the soap's most loved couples. George departed Home and Away on 30 August 1996. She then made a health and fitness video, Mind, Body and Soul (1996), created a sleepwear line called "An Angel at My Bedside", and had a recurring role on the short-lived 1997 Fox Broadcasting Company television fantasy drama series Roar, which was filmed in Queensland, opposite Heath Ledger. Her fearlessness in performing the show's stunts endeared her to the show's creator, Shaun Cassidy, who subsequently cast her as the female lead in the pilot Hollyweird. A show about "the adventures of an intrepid pair of friends from Ohio who take their love for the macabre and use it to solve crimes plaguing Los Angeles", she was to star alongside Bodhi Elfman and Fab Filippo. The pilot was ordered to series, however, the Fox Network's tinkering and delays frustrated Cassidy, who pulled out of the project, saying that Fox had forced him to spend "much of the last year trying to fix something I never viewed as broken in the first place." Ultimately, production never went ahead on the show. George then appeared on the cover and in a nude pictorial for the March 1997 issue of Australian Playboy.