[1] She starred in the CBS daytime soap opera As the World Turns from 1981 to 1984, and in 1983 had the leading role in the slasher film The House on Sorority Row.
The daughter of the president of the U.S. Cocoa Corporation, McNeil grew up in Gladwyne, a suburb in Lower Merion Township, of Montgomery County, west of Philadelphia, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
[4] 1985, saw Kate McNeil appearing in the TV miniseries Kane & Abel and afterwards in 1986 she was featured in another miniseries, the historical epic about the American Civil War (1861-1865), the sequel / second of three in the series, North and South Book II, based on the thick three-volumes set of historical fiction books North and South by acclaimed author John Jakes (1932-2023).
In the 1990s, Kate McNeil appeared as Janet Gilchrist, fiance and then wedded wife of famous TV teen-ager character of the 1970s, now older and more mature main character "John Boy" Walton (Richard Thomas, born 1951), in the final three of subsequent six sequel / reunion made-for-TV films aired in the 1990s (1993, 1995 and 1997), following the long-running The Waltons TV series of 1971/1972 to 1981.
She has appeared on Amazing Stories (1985), Simon & Simon, Designing Women, Midnight Caller, Quantum Leap (1989), The X-Files, Murder, She Wrote, Babylon 5, Diagnosis Murder, Veronica Mars, Bones, The Mentalist, and Mad Men.