She attended Brandeis University earning B.A Cum Laude in Theater Arts. After graduating from Brandeis, she moved to Paris and studied theater with actor Jacques LeCoq.

Before Star Trek: The Next Generation, she was mostly known as a choreographer, often working on Jim Henson productions including the films The Dark Crystal, for which she was a choreographer, Labyrinth, for which she served as Director of Choreography and Puppet Movement, and The Muppets Take Manhattan, in which she has a brief on-screen appearance. As a way of distinguishing her acting work from Read more...

McFadden now divides her time between Los Angeles and Languedoc, in the south of France, where she and her husband, John Talbot, are restoring an old theater. She has one son, James Cleveland McFadden-Talbot, born in June 1991, who is called Jack.