Biography
Melinda Clarke is best known for playing the manipulative and cunning Julie Cooper on The O.C., Kelly Donovan in the Vampire Diaries, and Julie Walker in the cult classic horror film Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993).
Clarke’s first role was portraying Faith Taylor on the soap opera Days of Our Lives in 1989, alongside her father John Clarke, who played Mickey Horton, beginning with the debut of the program in 1965, until his retirement in 2004.
On television, she is also well known for playing the professional dominatrix Lady Heather on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Amanda on the action-thriller television series Nikita, and as ‘Melinda’, a fictionalized version of herself on HBO's hit series Entourage. Other notable roles include Seinfeld's girlfriend Alex in “The Muffin Tops’ episode, Sasha Banacheck on Chuck, Nandi on Firefly, Velasca on Xena: The Warrior Princess, Tracey McKay on Dallas, and Grace Van Dahl on Gotham.
Her feature credits include Return to Two Moon Junction (1995), the cult comedy-sci-fi-horror, Killer Tongue (1996) alongside Robert Englund, Doug Bradley, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Jessica Priest in Spawn (1997).
She has also lent her voice to The Animatrix (2003), in the role of Alexa for the “Matriculated” segment and Madame Macmu-Ling in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
For the past few years she and Rachel Bilson (friend and co-star on The O.C.) have been having a blast walking down memory lane with their rewatch podcast “Welcome To The O.C. Bitches” They deep dive all things The O.C. and are joined weekly by cast, crew and superfans of the hit tv show. It can currently be streamed on all podcast platforms, YouTube, and HBO Max.
Currently Melinda also hosts a new podcast called “Bye Bitches”, rewatching and celebrating iconic TV and film with her co-host and daughter CG.