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Isabel Gillies

b. 1970

American actress

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About Isabel Gillies

Born 1970. Isabel Gillies is an American actor, television actor, film actor, biographer and writer.

Isabel Boyer Gillies (born Other film credits include Finley in Another Girl Another Planet, Alison in I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), Moira Ingalls in On Line (2002), Isabel in Happy Here and Now (2002), and Kathryn in New Orleans, Mon Amour (2008).

Prior to her role as Kathy Stabler on SVU, which she played from 1999 to 2011, Gillies appeared in "Bad Girl," an episode of the original Law & Order series, playing Monica Johnson, a young woman who murders an undercover police officer and then undergoes a religious conversion during her trial and is born again. In 2000, she played the role of Alison in the short-lived Fox series, The $treet.

In 2021, she reprised her role as Kathy Stabler for one episode during season 22 of SVU; the cross-over episode that launched Law & Order: Organized Crime. The hostile online reaction of SVU fans to her character's death led Gillies to discuss how fandom had changed due to social media. She has since reappeared in flashbacks, most recently in 2025.

Books In addition to writing for a number of news outlets, including The Los Angeles Times The New York Times, Gillies has four books to her credit.

Her 2009 memoir, Happens Every Day, is about her leaving New York City to follow her first husband to Oberlin College. Happens Every Day was a New York Times bestseller. It was featured by Starbucks as a nationwide selection for its book program. NPR's Fresh Air selected it as a Top Ten Book of 2009. Her follow-up memoir, A Year and Six Seconds, was published in 2011.

In 2014, Gillies tried her hand with fiction with Starry Night. This young-adult novel was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in September 2014.

In 2019, she returned to non-fiction with Cozy. This was published by Harper Wave. The New York Times Book Review said of it, "For Gillies, coziness is a state of mind, the environments we create in our homes to feel at ease. Think of her as a companion to Marie Kondo, filling up all those spaces once they've been decluttered."

Personal life She was married to DeSales Harrison, an English professor at Oberlin College, from 1999 to 2005. Gillies married Peter Lattman, an editor at The New York Times, on October 13, 2007. Gillies spends her summers in Islesboro, Maine.

Filmography Film

Television

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Important facts

Birth century
Nationality
Education
Brearley School, Nightingale-Bamford School, New York University Tisch School of the Arts
Also known as
Isabel Boyer Gillies

People in Isabel Gillies's life

Named in this biography and alive at the same time

Contemporaries

People whose lives overlapped Isabel Gillies's

Frequently asked questions

Who is Isabel Gillies?

American actress

When was Isabel Gillies born?

Isabel Gillies was born on 9 February 1970 in New York City.

What is Isabel Gillies's occupation?

Isabel Gillies is an actor, television actor, film actor, biographer and writer.

What nationality is Isabel Gillies?

Isabel Gillies is American.

Sources & further reading

· Wikipedia: Isabel Gillies

· Wikidata: Q745346

· DBpedia: Isabel Gillies

Cite this page

APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Isabel Gillies. https://biography.guide/isabel-gillies/

MLA: "Isabel Gillies." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/isabel-gillies/.

Chicago: "Isabel Gillies." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/isabel-gillies/.

Data last updated: 2026-09-22 · Spot an error? Report a correction.

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