Kelly Rutherford Lily van der Woodsen
The woman behind Lily van der Woodsen is Kelly Deane Melissa Rutherford, born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, on November 6, 1968. Her parents split up when she was just two years old, and Kelly lived with her mother, a model, as she traveled the country. “She was always very independent,” Kelly’s mother told People in 1997. “In first grade, she wanted to teach the class.” When Kelly reached her teen years, the family settled in Newport Beach, California, where she attended Corona Del Mar High School.
Once she graduated, Kelly followed in her mother’s footsteps, pursuing modeling and acting work in New York City, landing commercials and roles on soap operas. Her very first role was in a Mother’s Cookie Ice Cream commercial with Friends’ Matt LeBlanc. Playing Sam Whitmore on Generations was Kelly’s first notable role, and she earned a nomination for a Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Heroine (1989). Moving to Hollywood, Kelly continued to work on soaps and TV shows like Homefront, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Courthouse, and Kindred: The Embraced.
In more ways than one. In 1996, she was cast on the hit soap Melrose Place as call girl Megan Lewis, who has an affair with Dr. Michael Mancini as his wife Kimberly battles her brain tumor. Kelly stayed with the series until its end in 1999. Working in both film and television, Kelly acted in three short-lived but well-regarded series — The District, Threat Matrix, and E-Ring — before being cast on Gossip Girl.
In 2001, Kelly married Carlos Tarajano, a Venezuelan banker, but their marriage didn’t last long enough for the InStyle issue featuring their nuptials to hit newsstands. She wed her second husband, Daniel Giersch, a German businessman, in 2006, and together they had a son, Hermés Gustaf Daniel Giersch, on October 18, 2006. But in 2008, while pregnant with their second child, Kelly filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Shuttling back and forth between L.A. where their home is and New York where Gossip Girl films, Kelly remained positive. On June 8, daughter Helena was born.
Playing Lily van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl was a role Kelly was excited to take on, saying, “Oh she’s so rich. And it’s so fun. The clothes are so good. . . . It’s such a fun world. The old-school New York, Upper East Side — it’s not something we’ve seen much of recently.”
Though a new mother herself when she began playing Lily, Kelly was not used to playing the “mom” character. Kelly defended the show’s risqué plotlines, saying Gossip Girl “shows a good example and a bad example and you learn from both.” Playing Lily has also made her appreciate the challenges her own mother faced while raising her.
Matthew Settle as Rufus Humphrey
The youngest of six, Jeffrey Matthew Settle was born September 17, 1969, in Hickory, North Carolina, to Joan and Dr. Robert Settle, a Baptist minister. The family moved to Sevier County, Tennessee, when Matthew was 14, and he attended Seymour Community Christian Academy. After high school, Matthew moved to New York City to be a musician, and after some odd jobs, he found his way to Los Angeles. There he looked for acting work and landed a pilot, Shaughnessy, in 1996.
His feature film debut was in the teen slasher I Still Know What You Did Last Summer playing Will Benson, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s seemingly perfect college friend. From there, Matthew’s career continued to blossom with notable turns in award-winning miniseries, playing Captain Ronald Speirs in Band of Brothers, produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, and as Jacob Wheeler in Into the West, another Steven Spielberg–produced project. It was through playing Captain Speirs that Matthew’s father finally came around to his son’s career choice.
From those successes Matthew also found himself all over network TV; he worked on ER, The Practice, Law & Order: SVU, and Brothers & Sisters. Matthew also hit the big screen in U-571, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rancid, and The Celestine Prophecy. Rufus Humphrey wasn’t the first role Matthew played that required singing; in an Austrian film, he had to record a song, but being cast as the frontman of Lincoln Hawk did present some challenges.
Timely preparation for his real-life role as father: on March 5, 2009, Matthew and his wife, actress Naama Nativ, welcomed 8-pound, 11-ounce, Aven Angelica. And his castmates were excited about the addition to the Gossip Girl family. Matthew is interested in trying his hand at directing, perhaps with an episode of Gossip Girl à la Jason Priestley and 90210. In the meantime, Matthew has continued to work outside of the Gossip world, playing President Kennedy in 2008’s The Express: The Ernie Davis Story and playing a love interest to Heather Graham in the dark comedy ExTerminators, which premiered at 2009’s South by Southwest Film Festival.
Matthew was unprepared for the reaction from Gossip Girl fans. Fawning fans should keep in mind that Matthew’s wife Naama used to be a drill sergeant in the Israeli army. But Matthew’s happy playing Rufus Humphrey.