Lisa Ann Walter

Lisa Ann Walter (born August 3, 1963) is an American actress, comedian and television producer, best known for her roles as Chessy in the romantic comedy film The Parent Trap and Melissa Schemmenti on the ABC mockumentary sitcom Abbott Elementary. She was formerly the creator and executive producer of Oxygen network reality weight-loss competition series, Dance Your Ass Off. Her other reality television work includes her stint as a judge on ABC's reality television series The Next Best Thing: Who Is the Greatest Celebrity Impersonator?, and as winning a celebrity edition of the game show The Weakest Link. She also created and starred in the short-lived 1996–1997 sitcom, Life's Work, and appeared in Bruce Almighty, Shall We Dance, and War of the Worlds. Walter was born on August 3, 1963, in Silver Spring, Maryland. She and her older sister, Laura, are the children of a geophysicist British father who was born in France of Alsatian descent and a substitute-teacher mother who was born in Sicily. The family lived in different places following their father's work, and their childhood homes included Germany and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. She graduated with a theater degree from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1983.