Supporting and Character Actresses
This is a list of great female character players and talented supporting actreses that don't get enough love. Some have done lead roles. I do have some lead actresses who have done notable supporting and character roles.
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Kat Dennings was born Katherine Victoria Litwack in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, to Ellen (Schatz), a speech therapist and poet, and Gerald Litwack, a molecular pharmacologist. She is the youngest of five children. Her family is of Russian Jewish descent. Kat was predominantly home-schooled, graduating at the age of fourteen. Her family subsequently moved to Los Angeles, California to support Kat acting full-time.
After work doing commercials, she began work in television, starting with a role on HBO's Sex and the City (1998), following up with roles on Raising Dad (2001), The Scream Team (2002), Everwood (2002), Without a Trace (2002) and ER (1994), among others.
Kat made the move to the big screen with supporting roles in Raise Your Voice (2004), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Big Momma's House 2 (2006). She later achieved a level of fame with roles in The House Bunny (2008) and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008).
Kat continues to act in feature films and is an avid video blogger. Since 2011, she has starred with Beth Behrs in the CBS television series 2 Broke Girls (2011).Shes a better actress than she gets credit for having seen her as the lead in daydream nation and to write love on her arms. She usually does comedy roles. And roles usually lead actresses don't do.- Actress
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Actress Josie Davis stars in director Drew Water's hilarious Christmas comedy, Festival of Trees, out this holiday season.Also set to release this year is her role as evil government astrophysicist, Dr Barboux, opposite James Remar, in the comedy Glowzies in which she and Remar were nominated at the Houston Film Festival. The movie premiered at the respected Sitges Film Festival, in Spain. She also has a watchable podcast on You Tube and can be heard on Apple, Spotify etc but you can watch clips from it on her Instagram page - @JosieDavis. Updates for her career are also found there.
A Hollywood, California native, Josie Davis began her career at the age of three years old. She starred in numerous television commercials, and as just a child, she was cast as a series regular, on the hit television show, Charles In Charge, rated number-one in syndication. Josie received three nominations for her performance on the series and also won the respected Youth In Film Award for her role as the adorable, shy and bookish, Sarah Powell.
Josie was the youngest student to study with respected acting teacher from Brooklyn, Paul E Richards, for twenty years until his passing. He had been referred to as Lee Strasberg's "right hand man."
At the age of twenty four, Davis auditioned in front of Hollywood heavyweights, Martin Landau, Mark Rydell, Shelley Winters, and Barbara Bain. After only one audition Davis was accepted into the legendary Actors Studio as a "Member with working privileges", then was made a Lifetime Member after only one callback. Over one thousand actors auditioned, making Davis only one of two actors to be accepted that year.
After wanting to focus on film, Academy Award winning director Mark Rydell told Josie even though she wanted to be thought of as a film actor she should be proud to be a new series regular on the last season of the iconic television series, Beverly Hills 90210. After the series ended, legendary Aaron Spelling cast Josie again as a series regular on his next show for NBC called, Titans, until it's final run.
Josie 's additional series credits include: a recurring role on CSI: NY with Gary Sinese, the fan favorite Christmas episode of Two and a Half Men that USA Today called "A must see". Comedy King, Chuck Lorre and the ex President of Warner Brothers, Peter Roth, told Davis she should've been nominated for an emmy as Sandy, the multiple personality cook. Lorre said, "I couldn't imagine anyone else playing that part". Davis' other television credits include: CSI: Miami, Hawaii Five-O, NCIS, Rules of Engagment with David Spade, The Mentalist, and the list goes on and on. Josie was cast opposite Ed O'Neil and Jennifer Love Hewitt in the television comedy, In the Game, playing a diva sports reporter which guest starred Tom Brady, for ABC.
In 2011, Martin Landau and Mark Rydell cast Josie in the stage production out of The Actors Studio - David Mamet's Speed the Plow where her performance extremely well-received.
Josie took a break from television to focus on films. First up was Wizardream, playing the British Evil Queen, opposite Malcolm Mc Dowell. Nicolas Cage cast Josie in his directorial debut, Sonny, opposite James Franco with the late Harry Dean Stanton. Josie has played the lead in numerous independent films as well as Lifetime movies, which earned her Lifetime Movie Network's Lifetime Achievement award as well as one for her lead role in Backstabbed, both voted entirely by Lifetime fans.
Josie is writing her Memoir, which will take years to complete. She is involved in a variety of animal charities, but has especially loved her anonymous volunteer work at the South Los Angeles Animal Shelter where she adopted her two cats- Katharine Isabelle was born Katharine Isobel Murray in Vancouver, British Columbia to Graeme Murray, an art director and production designer who has won two Emmy Awards for his special effects work on the television series The X-Files (1993) and Gail Murray, an amateur Vancouver writer and producer. Isabelle is the sister of journalist and former child actor Joshua Murray.
Breaking into acting in 1989 with parts in the films Cousins (1989), Cold Front (1989) and The Madonna (1989) episode of MacGyver (1985), Isabelle quickly proved herself as a skilled actress.
In 1992, she played the role of Erica Sanderson in Knight Moves (1992). American audiences took notice of her as Lindsay Clark in the teen thriller Disturbing Behavior (1998).
In 2000, Isabelle landed the lead role in the cult-favorite Ginger Snaps (2000), where her stand-out performance will leave a mark in the minds of viewers.
Continuing her busy career, she portrayed Tia in Bones (2001), Paige Fleming in Turning Paige (2001) and Tanya Francke in Insomnia (2002), opposite Al Pacino.
Throughout the 2000s, Isabelle appeared in several horror and slasher films, including Carrie (2002), Spooky House (2001), Freddy vs. Jason (2003), opposite Robert Englund as well as Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004) and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004).
She was also in varied independent films, among which Falling Angels (2003), On the Corner (2003), The Last Casino (2004), Everything's Gone Green (2006), the short film Favourite People List (2009), and Frankie & Alice (2010).
Isabelle has guest-starred in numerous popular television series throughout her career, some notable ones being The X-Files (1993), Da Vinci's Inquest (1998), Smallville (2001) and Supernatural (2005).
In 2008, she received the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series for her role as Norma Carlyle in the praised TV adaptation The Englishman's Boy (2008).
In 2012, Isabelle starred in the controversial horror film American Mary (2012) which earned her special mention at the Austin Fantastic Fest in addition to a Festival Trophy Award for Best Actress, a Special Award for Best Actress, a Fright Meter Award for Best Actress and a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Leading Actress.
Followed appearances in 13 Eerie (2013), Torment (2013) and Lawrence & Holloman (2013) for which she obtained a Leo Award nomination for Best Supporting Performance by a Female in a Motion Picture.
She also caught the eye of many with her magnetic portrayal of Margot Verger in the second and third seasons of the critically acclaimed NBC TV series Hannibal (2013).
In 2014, she reunited with American Mary (2012) creators Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska in See No Evil 2 (2014).
In 2015, Isabelle starred in the thriller film 88 (2015) and the horror film The Girl in the Photographs (2015). That year, she could also be seen in the indie film How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town (2015), alongside Jewel Staite, Lauren Lee Smith and Ennis Esmer. - Throughout her diverse career, Selma Blair has been one of the most versatile and exciting actresses on screen. Blair's longstanding career began with her comedic roles in pop culture classics in the early 2000s. Blair has worked with an array of acclaimed directors including Guillermo del Toro and Todd Solodnz, to name a few. Additionally, Blair was named one of Time Magazine's Person of The Year in 2017 as one of their Silence Breakers.
Upcoming, Blair will be seen as the subject of the documentary, Introducing, Selma Blair, which premiered to rave reviews at the 2021 SXSW Festival. At the festival, the feature won the Special Jury Recognition for Exceptional Intimacy in Storytelling. Following SXSW, DEADLINE wrote "Selma Blair's unflinching and raw vulnerability in Introducing, Selma Blair, coupled with director Rachel Fleit's almost voyeuristic chronicling of her MS diagnosis, invites us not just to feel empathy for the star. More than that, it invites us into her fight, prompting anyone watching to feel joined with her in battle." The documentary, which reveals Blair's intimate and raw journey with Multiple Sclerosis, was acquired by Discovery+ and is slated for release in Fall 2021.
Previously, Blair starred in the comedy/horror thriller Mom and Dad, alongside Nicholas Cage. The film, which follows a teenage girl and her younger brother as they must survive a wild 24 hours during which a mass hysteria of unknown origin causes parents to turn violently on their own kids. The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and later screened at the 2017 Sitges Film Festival and the 2017 Molins Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Jury Prize for Best Film and the Audience Award for Best Films. VARIETY critic Dennis Harvey wrote "She [Blair] covers a gamut from bittersweet sympathy to farce to monstrousness, running amok like a cat on piano keys, yet hitting each note perfectly. "Mom & Dad" isn't the kind of movie they give acting awards to - but in a just world, it would be."
On television, Blair was recently seen co-starring as "Kris Jenner" in FX's The People vs. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story for Ryan Murphy.
Blair also starred in Todd Solodnz's Dark Horse in 2011 as Miranda (formerly 'Vi'), alongside Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow. The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival and was later released by Virgil Films & Entertainment. Blair also starred in Todd Solodnz's Storytelling in 2001.
In 2008, Blair reprised her role as Liz Sherman in Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army, after starring in the original Hellboy in 2004 (also directed by del Toro).
Blair is perhaps best well known for her scene stealing performance as 'Vivian Kesington' in MGM's hit Romantic comedy Legally Blonde, alongside Reese Witherspoon. The film was nominated in 2002 for a Golden Globe Award in the category of Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy.
In 1999, Blair played the role of Cecile Caldwell in Cruel Intentions, alongside Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Ryan Phillippe. Columbia Pictures released the film, which was directed by Roger Kumble.
Other film credits include the YA film After (2019) and its sequel, After We Collided (2020), based on the popular romance novels of the same name. Blair also starred in Robert Benton's Feast of Love in 2007, and John Water's A Dirty Shame in 2004. In 2002, Blair reconnected with her Cruel Intentions director Roger Kumble in The Sweetest Thing for Columbia Pictures, alongside Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, and Jason Bateman.
Blair also starred on television as 'Kim' on Kath & Kim for NBC from 2008-2009, opposite Molly Shannon. Blair has made memorable guest star appearances including Friends, Another Life, Heathers, Portlandia and Web Therapy.
On stage, Blair starred in the World Premiere production of Rajiv Joseph's Gruesome Playground Injuries at The Alley Theater and was nominated for a Grammy Award for "Best Spoken Word Recording" for her reading of The Diary of Anne Frank.
Blair currently resides in Los Angeles.I think she's one of the most underrated actresses in Hollywood - Actress
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Jessica Michelle Chastain was born in Sacramento, California, and was raised in a middle-class household in a Northern California suburb. Her mother, Jerri Chastain, is a vegan chef whose family is originally from Kansas, and her stepfather is a fireman. She discovered dance at the age of nine and was in a dance troupe by age thirteen. She began performing in Shakespearean productions all over the Bay area.
An actor in a production of "Romeo & Juliet" encouraged her to audition for Juilliard as a drama major. She became a member of "Crew 32" with the help of a scholarship from one of the school's famous alumni, Robin Williams.
In her last year at Juilliard, she was offered a holding deal with TV writer/producer John Wells and she eventually worked in three of his TV shows. Jessica continues to do theatre, having played in "The Cherry Orchard", "Rodney's Wife", "Salome" and "Othello". She spends her time between New York and Los Angeles, working in theater, film and TV.
In 2011, she had a prolific year in film. She was nominated for and won a number of awards, including a 2012 Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for The Help (2011).While shes had lead roles she's proven she can be a great character player as well.- Actress
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Famke Janssen was born November 5, 1964, in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, and has two other siblings. Moving to America in the 1980s, she modeled for Chanel in New York. Later, taking a break from modeling, she attended Columbia University, majoring in literature.
This model-turned-actress broke into Hollywood in the early 1990s. Her first film was Fathers & Sons (1992). Later she became James Bond's enemy in GoldenEye (1995). Her career has bloomed since then with her starring in such films as House on Haunted Hill (1999), Hide and Seek (2005), a recurring role on FX's Nip/Tuck (2003), and the blockbuster movies X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).- Amy Yasbeck was born on 12 September 1962 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. She is an actress, known for The Mask (1994), Pretty Woman (1990) and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). She was previously married to John Ritter.I have always been a fan of her,but its her work in the Problem Child movies that really impressed,she plays two different characters in those movies and neither are anything alike
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Since making her uncredited debut as a dancer in Beatlemania (1981), Gina Gershon has established herself as a character actress and one of the leading icons of American camp. For it was fourteen years after her movie debut that Gina made movie history as the predatory bisexual who was the leading light of a Las Vegas leg-line in director Paul Verhoeven's kitsch classic Showgirls (1995). Exploding out of a plaster-of-Paris volcano clad in nothing but body makeup and a G-string, Gina Gershon obtained cinema immortality. After Showgirls (1995), she solidified her reputation, playing a lesbian sexpot in the Wachowskis' neo-noir Bound (1996).
Gina Gershon was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, the last in a brood of three kids. Her mother, Mickey (Koppel), worked as an interior decorator, and her father, Stanley Gershon, was a salesman and worked in the import/export business. Her paternal grandparents were from Russian Jewish families, and her maternal grandparents were born in Holland and Belgium, both of them to Jewish families from Poland. Gina was raised in the San Fernando Valley, and got the acting bug early, appearing at the age of seven in a school production of Bye Bye Birdie (1963). Because of her acting ambitions, her parents moved to Beverly Hills so Gina could attend Beverly Hills High, where she indulged her acting jones by appearing in a student production of The Music Man (1962). Her first love, she says, is singing.
After graduating from high school in 1980, she attended Emerson College in Boston, but took a part in the musical "Runaways". She transferred to New York University, where her official biography says she studied philosophy and psychology, but she graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts, taking a bachelor of fine arts degree in drama in 1983. In New York City, while perfecting her craft, she co-founded the theater company Naked Angels with Helen Slater.
Her big-screen breakthrough came with a part in the 1986 "Brat Pack" teenage hit Pretty in Pink (1986). She also had parts in the Tom Cruise vehicle Cocktail (1988) and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Red Heat (1988). Of this period, she says, "One of my first gigs, a movie called Cocktail (1988), I found myself at 8 in the morning, in bed, practically naked, having to make out with Tom Cruise; hmmmm... movie business - so far, so good".
Citing Frank Sinatra's song "My Way" as an inspiration, she says that following Cocktail (1988), "I was fortunate enough to play many diversified roles in film, television and stage. Not always to the liking of my managers and agents, but I always did what I wanted...." She played Nancy Barbato Sinatra, Frank's first wife, in the TV miniseries Sinatra (1992).
Gina Gershon became a celebrity in Showgirls (1995). The following year, Gershon solidified her claim on second-tier stardom playing the calculating lesbian "Corky" in the crime movie Bound (1995). She never did capitalize on her mid-1990s breakthrough, but Gershon is established as a character actress and is never out of work, unlike most of her female peers who started out in the industry at the same time. Though no classic beauty, the talented thespian remains gainfully employed while many actresses of her vintage are out of work as she is possessed of a unique look and smoldering sex appeal that comes across on camera.
Gershon is versatile, too, as at home on stage as she is in front of the camera. After appearing in off-Broadway and regional theater productions, she made her Broadway debut as a replacement in Sam Mendes' revival of Cabaret (1972) in January 2001. For six months, she played the key role of "Sally Bowles", returning that October to reprise the role for another month. In 2008, she once again appeared on Broadway in the revival of the farce "Boeing Boeing" on Broadway, which won the Tony award for Best Revival.
Gina Gershon also is a children's book writer. In 2008, Putmam Juvenile published her "Camp Creepy Time", a tale of a boy who discovers aliens at his summer camp, which she co-wrote with her brother, Dann Gershon. "Camp Creepy Time" recently was optioned by DreamWorks, which plans to turn it into a movie. In 2008, she also released "In Search Of Cleo", a CD featuring nine songs which she wrote or co-wrote.- Actress
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Tia Carrere, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, was discovered in a grocery store and landed the female lead in the film Aloha Summer. She then moved to Los Angeles and continued her ascent in the acting world as a series regular on General Hospital as well as a string of guest starring roles on MacGyver, Quantum Leap, Married With Children, and Friday the 13th among others. With her iconic breakthrough role as Cassandra in Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2, Tia was able to showcase both her considerable singing as well as acting chops. Wayne's World was a worldwide phenom and set the stage for the femme fatale role of Juno Skinner in James Cameron's film True Lies, opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger; the computer whiz Jingo Asakuma in Rising Sun opposite Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes; and her very own series lead as Sydney Fox in Relic Hunter. Other work includes Nip/Tuck, In Plain Sight, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and many more. Subsequently Tia returned to her Hawaii roots starring in Disney's animated film Lilo & Stitch, while on the musical front, being nominated four times and winning the Grammy twice with her records 'ikena and Huana Ke Aloha. She also co-hosted and performed during the ceremony. Lately, Tia can be seen in Michael Patrick King's series AJ & the Queen starring RuPaul, Amblin Films "Easter Sunday" starring JoKoy and Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever. She also just released a single and video of a song she wrote called "I'm Still Here".- Actress
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Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and was named after a nearby town, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of Cynthia (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller. Her father's family is Ukrainian Jewish and Romanian Jewish. She grew up in a ranch commune in Northern California which had no electricity. She is the goddaughter of Timothy Leary. Her parents were friends of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and once edited a book called "Shaman Woman Mainline Lady", an anthology of writings on the drug experience in literature, which included one piece by Louisa May Alcott. Ryder would later play the lead role of Josephine March in the adaptation of this author's novel Little Women (1994).
Ryder moved with her parents to Petaluma, California when she was ten and enrolled in acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater. At age 13, she had a video audition to the film Desert Bloom (1986), but did not get the role. However, director David Seltzer spotted her and cast her in Lucas (1986). When telephoned to ask how she would like to have her name appear on the credits, she suggested Ryder as her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing the background. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III (1990), but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990) and Mermaids (1990) back-to-back. She said she did not want to let everyone down by doing a substandard performance. She later made The Age of Innocence (1993), which was directed by Martin Scorsese, whom she believes to be "the best director in the world".- Actress
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One tough cookie who can definitely hold her own next to the boys on film and TV, lovely, dark-haired Rachel Ticotin has stepped up to the plate many times in strong-armed femme roles, playing everything from cops and bodyguards to military corporals.
Born on November 1, 1958, and raised in the Bronx, Rachel is of Puerto Rican, Russian-Jewish descent and learned the fine art of discipline at a young age with ballet training at age 8. She made her first stage appearance at age 10 as a Siamese princess in a production of "The King and I" at NYC's City Center Theatre. At age twelve she joined the Ballet Hispanico of New York and went on to work with such famed choreographers as Alvin Ailey, Geoffrey Holder and Anna Sokolow.
Rachel made her film debut at age 20 in a bit role as a gypsy dancer in the King of the Gypsies (1978) starring Eric Roberts. She gained valuable experience in off-Broadway shows and on the other side of the camera as a production assistant for such films as The Wanderers (1979), Dressed to Kill (1980) and Raging Bull (1980).
Rachel earned her big break after being handed the top female role opposite Paul Newman and Edward Asner in the brutal police film Fort Apache the Bronx (1981). Television became a viable forum with the TV pilot For Love and Honor (1983) as Corporal Grace Pavlik. The pilot introduced her to up-and-coming actor David Caruso. They married later that year. Rachel went on to appear in the short-lived series version of For Love and Honor (1983) without Caruso. Other television projects included assertive roles in Prison Stories: Women on the Inside (1991), Aftershock: Earthquake in New York (1999) and Warden of Red Rock (2001). On the big screen she played tough in Critical Condition (1987), Where the Day Takes You (1992), and Falling Down (1993).
Her best known role is probably the Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi blockbuster Total Recall (1990) in which the athletic Rachel has a memorable fisticuffs scene with Sharon Stone. In 1997, Rachel earned an ALMA award for her role as a prison guard in Con Air (1997). Divorced from Caruso after six years in 1989, she later met actor Peter Strauss on the set of the TV movie Thicker Than Blood: The Larry McLinden Story (1994). They married in 1998. In series drama she joined the cast of Ohara (1987) as a U.S. attorney and played detective in the police drama Crime & Punishment (1993).
A proven talent who is as alluring as she is enduring, Rachel's work has included the popular films Something's Gotta Give (2003) starring Jack Nicholson and Oscar-nominated Diane Keaton, Man on Fire (2004) with Denzel Washington, as well as the recent The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005) and its sequel The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008). She also was part of the critically acclaimed bi-cultural series American Family (2002).
Although gracing such recent films as horror opus The Eye (2008), the romantic crimer The Burning Plain (2008) and the dramatic thriller América (2011), Rachel has focused on TV as of late with guest roles on the revamped "The Outer Limits," as well as "Lost," "Law & Order: LA," "NCIS: Los Angeles," "Homeland," "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Act."- Actress
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An actress who always attracts audiences' attention, Jennifer Tilly is by turns funny, sexy, compassionate, compelling and often all at once. She has been playing unforgettable characters ever since she started her career as an actress.
Jennifer Tilly was born Jennifer Ellen Chan in Harbor City, Los Angeles, to Harry Chan, a used car salesman, who was of Chinese origin, and Patricia (née Tilly), a schoolteacher and stage actress. Her sister is actress Meg Tilly. They were raised on rural Texada Island, British Columbia, by her mother and stepfather, John Ward.
Jennifer successfully cultivated another fan base with the revitalization of the "Child's Play" horror comedy franchise. For Ronny Yu's Bride of Chucky (1998), the filmmakers turned to Jennifer to create the character who would spark the series in a new direction. She met the challenge and established a new horror icon in Tiffany. In Rogue Pictures' Seed of Chucky (2004), written and directed by series creator Don Mancini, Jennifer again took the popular series to the next level; starring as Tiffany and as herself, the deadly doll's favorite actress, who soon becomes an unwitting hostess in more ways than one.
Jennifer's pitch-perfect voiceover work as Tiffany is not the only instance of her being able to incarnate a character from the vocal chords out. Families know her distinctive cadences from the Disney hits Home on the Range (2004), directed by Will Finn and John Sanford; The Haunted Mansion (2003) (in which Jennifer acted from the neck up only), directed by Rob Minkoff; and the Pixar blockbuster Monsters, Inc. (2001) (voicing Mike's love interest Celia), directed by Pete Docter, David Silverman and Lee Unkrich. She began her acting career as a teenager, putting herself through the theater program at Stephens College in Missouri by winning writing competitions. She then headed to Los Angeles, California. While she continued to act on the stage (earning a Dramalogue Award for her performance in "Vanities"), movies and television immediately came calling for the actress with the unique voice and visage.
In 2001, she starred in the Broadway revival of "The Women" with Cynthia Nixon and Kristen Johnson, which was later taped for, and broadcast on, PBS. In 2008, she appeared with Miranda Richardson in the critically acclaimed production of Wallace Shawn's play "Grasses of a Thousand Colors" at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Other plays include "Tartuffe" (LAAT) "Boy's Life" (LAAT) "Baby with the Bathwater" (LAPT) and others too numerous to mention. In 2005, Jennifer met her boyfriend, professional poker player Phil Laak (also known as the Unabomber). That summer at the World Series of Poker, she bested a field of 601 to take down the Ladies Event and win a coveted gold bracelet. She followed this up by winning the WPT Ladies Invitational, making her one of a small but elite group holding both a WSOP bracelet, and a WPT title. In summer 2010, she also won the Bellagio Cup 5k tournament.- Actress
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Regina Hall was born December 12, 1970 in Washington, D.C., to Ruby, a teacher, and Odie Hall, a contractor. She graduated from Fordham University in 1992, and went on to earn a master's degree in journalism from New York University before shifting to an acting career. In 1997 at age 26, she began appearing in commercials, and then made the giant leap into movies. Her fame came with her role in the comedy-horror spoof Scary Movie, Regina Hall has frequented the big screen in roles that far from betrayed her age. Her recurring role in Scary Movie and the sequel Scary Movie 2 exhibited the 30-year-old's ability to maintain her youthful appearance, as she portrayed the high-school-aged Brenda Meeks. However, her first film role was in the 1999 film The Best Man. The following year, she made many other film appearances, including her starring role in Scary Movie in 2000. She first had a role in the movie Love and Basketball which also starred close friend Sanaa Lathan. In 2001, Hall's list of credits grew to include her first television role, as Corretta Lipp on the prime-time drama Ally McBeal, which was a recurring role for several episodes. Furthermore, in 2001 Scary Movie 2 was released, in addition to the Mandel Holland comedy The Other Brother, featuring Hall as Vicki. One year later, she starred in the action-drama Paid in Full, directed by Charles Stone III. She would later on start in other films such as;Malibu's Most Wanted, Scary Movie 3, The Honeymooners, and First Sunday.- Actress
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Zuniga was born in San Francisco, California to Agnes A. Zuniga (née Janawicz) and Joaquin Alberto Zuniga Mazariegos. Her mother is a Unitarian minister, of Polish and Finnish descent, and her father, originally from Guatemala, was an emeritus professor of philosophy at California State University, East Bay. Zuniga has two sisters: Jennifer Zuniga and Rosario Zúñiga.
In her early teens, Zuniga expressed interest in acting, and attended the Young Conservatory program of the American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco. After her parents divorced, Zuniga moved with her mother and sister from Berkeley, California to Reading, Vermont, where she spent the remainder of her teenage years. Zuniga graduated from Woodstock Union High School in Woodstock, Vermont, in 1980, after which she returned to California and enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles to study theater arts. After leaving college, Zuniga was close friends and roommates with fellow actress Meg Ryan.
Zuniga made her film debut in a supporting part in the slasher film The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982), while a student at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was then cast in the 1984 horror film The Initiation (1984), opposite Vera Miles and Clu Gulager. This was followed by a lead role, opposite John Cusack, in Rob Reiner's film, The Sure Thing (1985).
In 1986, she starred as Princess Vespa in Mel Brooks' memorable cult comedy Spaceballs (1987), followed by a supporting part in the science fiction horror sequel, The Fly II (1989). From 1992 to 1996, Zuniga portrayed Jo Reynolds on the wildly popular soap opera Melrose Place (1992), which garnered Zuniga wider mainstream exposure. Her role on the series would be followed by numerous appearances on television series, including a lead role as Shelly Pierce on American Dreams (2004) from 2004 to 2005, and a recurring on the popular CW series, One Tree Hill (2003), as Victoria Davis, a role which she played from 2008 until 2012.- Actress
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Bronx-born character actress Cathy Moriarty was just 18 years old, fresh out of high school and had no idea that her life was about to change. Joe Pesci discovered her competing in a bathing-beauty contest at a bar. He invited her to audition for the part of Vikki LaMotta, second wife to champion boxer Jake LaMotta, portrayed by Robert De Niro, in Martin Scorsese's timeless black and white masterpiece, Raging Bull (1980). Moriarty's performance earned her an Academy Award nomination; however, shortly after appearing in the mediocre comedy, Neighbors (1981), she endured a near-fatal automobile accident which resulted in a six-year hiatus. She did not get within a mile radius of a good part until her most personally treasured role, the deliciously evil Montana Moorehead in the soap opera-parody, Soapdish (1991). Ever since, Moriarty's invigorating presence animated a variety of strong woman, all of which, incidentally, appear to be specifically written with her in mind.- Actress
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Alexandra Paul was modeling when she decided to forego college at Stanford University and pursue acting. With lead roles in 75 feature films and television programs, she can also be seen in the award-winning documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006).
Internationally recognized for her 5-year starring role as "Lt. Stephanie Holden" in the hit series Baywatch (1989), Alexandra began her acting career in 1982 at age 18, starring in the highly rated telefilm Paper Dolls (1982). She was then cast in studio flicks like Stephen King's Christine (1983); American Flyers (1985) opposite Kevin Costner; 8 Million Ways to Die (1986) opposite Jeff Bridges and Andy Garcia; Dragnet (1987) opposite Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd, and Spy Hard (1996) with Leslie Nielsen.
Alexandra hosted the extreme sports series Wild Waters on the Outdoor Life Network for 4 years, and hosted the WE network series Winning Women for two seasons. She co-hosted 150 episodes of the environmental TV talk show Earth Talk Today through 2008.
Throughout the 1990s, Alexandra had regular roles in several television series: Baywatch (1989), Fox's Fire Co 132, Daytona Beach (pilot), and the last 8 episodes on Melrose Place (1992). She also filmed two movies in war-torn Croatia with Pierce Brosnan and did many independent films. In the first decade of the 21st Century, Alexandra starred in 11 movies on Lifetime Movie Network. She also played a lesbian 4 times, opportunities she appreciates since her identical twin sister is gay.
In 2006, she shot 6 films, including a cameo in Borat:Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, and although her part was edited out, she remains in the DVD extras.
From 2010 - 2017, Alexandra has shot independent movies and an online series. She is producing 2 movies, a movie based on the book Free The Animals with her producing partner, Nik Tyler; and The B Team, an action comedy starring 8 of her Baywatch castmates.- Actress
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Danielle Harris is an American actress and film director from Plainview, New York. She is regarded as a scream queen for her many roles in horror films. Her better known roles include protagonist Jamie Lloyd in "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" (1988) and "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers" (1989), and "final girl" Annie Brackett in "Halloween" (2007) and "Halloween II" (2009). As a voice actress in animation, Harris is primarily known for voicing 16-year-old Debbie Thornberry in the fantasy animated series "The Wild Thornberrys" (1998-2004).
In 1977, Harris was born in a Jewish family of Plainview, New York. Plainview is a hamlet of Long Island with a large Jewish population. The hamlet is named because its location offered a clear view over the Hempstead Plains. Harris' family soon moved to Florida, where Harris received part of her primary education.
While still in elementary school, Harris won a beauty contest for children. She was consequently offered various modeling jobs, but initially had to turn down these offers. The modeling gigs would require long-distance travel, which she could not afford at the time. When her family moved to New York City, Harris started working as a child model. She also began to regularly appear in television commercials.
In 1985, Harris joined the cast of the long-running soap opera "One Life to Live" (1968-2012) in her first acting role. She played the part of "miracle child" Samantha "Sammi" Garretson. Her character was extracted as an embryo from the womb of her recently deceased mother Samantha Vernon and implanted in family friend Delilah Ralston, with her birth considered miraculous by the other characters. Harris continued playing Samantha until 1987, when the character was written out of the series. Afterwards, Harris started making guest star appearances in other television series.
Harris auditioned for the role of child protagonist Jamie Lloyd for the horror film "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" (1988), competing against several other child actresses. She won the role and made her film debut at the age of 11. In the film series "Halloween", serial killer Michael Myers was initially obsessed with attempts to kill his younger sister Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis). In the fourth film, Michael awakes from a coma and learns that Laurie died in an unrelated traffic accident. He decides to instead hunt down Laurie's daughter Jamie Lloyd, who is his sole living relative. The film also focuses on Jamie's relationship with her foster sister Rachel Carruthers (played by Ellie Cornell). Its finale hints that Jamie has a dark side of her own and is following in Michael's footsteps.
The fourth "Halloween" film only earned about 18 million dollars at the box office, but gained a cult following due to its cast of interesting female characters. Harris played Jamie again in the direct sequel "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers" (1989). In the film, the minds of Jamie and Michael are linked through telepathy. It was the first "Halloween" film to introduce elements of supernatural horror, and was considered controversial by the series' fans. The film earned only about $12 million at the box office, though Harris was praised for her acting skills. The "Halloween" series went on a hiatus for several years following the release of this film.
Harris' next film project was the action film "Marked for Death" (1990). She played Tracey Hatcher, niece of retired Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent John Hatcher (played by Steven Seagal). In the film, John's family is repeatedly threatened and attacked by employees of a drug lord who wants revenge against John, and styles himself as a user of black magic. The film was a surprise box office hit, earning $58 million at the worldwide box office. It was the highest-grossing film in Harris' career up to that point.
Harris had a substantial role in the television film "Don't Touch My Daughter" (1991), as a kidnapped damsel-in-distress. Her next major film project was the black comedy "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" (1991). She played Melissa Crandell, a 12-year-old tomboy. In the film, 5 siblings are supposed to spend their entire summer vacation under the care of an elderly babysitter. When the old woman dies in her sleep, they decide to cover-up her death, to take control of her car, and to start living on their own. The leader of the siblings in this film was played by Christina Applegate. The film performed modestly well at the box office, but gained more success in the home video market.
Harris returned to the action genre with the action comedy "The Last Boy Scout" (1991). She played Darian Hallenbeck, the rebellious daughter of private detective Joseph Cornelius "Joe" Hallenbeck (played by Bruce Willis). In the film, Joe is implicated in the murders of his ex-partner and a female client. While trying to clear his name, Joe learns that he is about to be framed for the assassination of a senator. He sets out to prevent this assassination, though the senator in question is one of his old enemies. The film earned $114.5 million at the worldwide box office and was credited with reviving Willis' career.
In 1992, Harris joined the cast of the sitcom Roseanne (1988-1997). She played the recurring character of Molly Tilden, the promiscuous daughter of supporting character Ty Tilden (played by Wings Hauser). Molly was depicted as a frenemy to main character Darlene Conner (played by Sara Gilbert). They hanged out together but frequently argued, and they soon realized that they were competing over the same potential boyfriend. Subplots involving Molly included her relationship with her older sister (and mother figure) Charlotte Tilden (played by Mara Hobel), and her habitual use of marijuana. Molly was written out of the series in 1993. Harris would later play Molly again in the sequel series "The Conners" (2018-), in an episode depicting Molly as a dying cancer patient.
Harris played the runaway girl Gwenie in the drama film "Free Willy" (1993). The film focused on the growing bond between a troubled orphan boy and a captive orca at an ailing amusement park. The film had a worldwide gross of about $154 million, and turned animal actor Keico the orca (1976 - 2003) into a popular star. The film had three sequels, but Harris was not involved with these film projects.
For the next couple of years, Harris was limited to playing only minor television roles. She entered negotiations to reprise the role of Jamie Lloyd in the sequel "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" (1995), but eventually declined to play the part. The character of Jamie only had limited screen time in the film and the salary offered for the role was below Harris' expectations. The role was instead played by J. C. Brandy.
In 1995, Harris made the news for her personal life. She was being stalked by obsessed fan Christopher Small, who frequently mailed death threats to her. Small was arrested after he arrived at her home with a shotgun. Several years later, Small started harassing Harris online. In 2009, Harris was granted a restraining order against Small.
In 1996, Harris co-starred with Katherine Heigl in the fantasy-themed television film "Wish Upon a Star". Harris played science nerd Hayley Wheaton, who is secretly envious of the supposedly perfect life of her older sister Alexia Wheaton (played by Heigl). The girls experience body swapping following a wish, and get to experience each other's life first hand. Hayley soon finds out that Alexia had a dysfunctional relationship with her female friends, and a rather poor relationship with her boyfriend. The life she just inherited is far from perfect. The film was one of several popular television films produced by the Disney Channel.
Harris returned to the action genre with the film "Back to Back". (1996). She played Chelsea Malone, daughter of disgraced ex-cop Bob Malone (played by Michael Rooker). She tries to raise bail money for her father, who was arrested for executing a gang of bank robbers in an episode of intense rage. But father and daughter instead find themselves hostages of a Yakuza member who is trying to flee Los Angeles. All three are soon on the run from both the local Mafia and from crooked cops. The film was marketed as a sequel to the crime film "American Yakuza" (1993), but their only similarities were depictions of conflicts between the Mafia and the Yakuza.
Harris had a supporting role in the disaster film "Daylight" (1996), which featured an accidental explosion and a consequent tunnel cave-in in the vicinity of New York City. Harris played teenager Ashley Crighton, one of several survivors who tried to find a way out of the collapsed tunnel. The film earned $159.2 million at the worldwide box office, and its sound editors were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing.
Harris' next film project was the slasher film "Urban Legend" (1998), her first appearance in a horror film since the late 1980s. The film featured a series of murders within the campus of a private university in New England, with each murder styled after an urban legend. Harris played Tosh Guaneri, a goth girl who was strangled to death within her own room. Tosh's sleeping roommate later claimed that she never heard any disturbance during the night of the murder., The film earned $72.5 million at the worldwide box office, and it was followed by two sequels. The film is credited with starting a trend of horror films which took inspiration from multiple urban legends.
In 1998, Harris was cast in the role of Debbie Thornberry in the fantasy animated series "The Wild Thornberrys" (1998-2004). It was the first time that she was part of the main cast in a series. The series featured the Thornberrys, a British family of modern-day nomads who traveled the world in order to film nature documentaries. The youngest daughter, Eliza Thornberry (voiced by Lacey Chabert), was secretly granted the ability to communicate with animals by an African shaman. She tried to keep this secret from her family, though her older sister Debbie is eventually let in on the secret. The two sisters have a love-hate relationship with each other, but each of them tries to defend the other sister from danger. The series lasted for 5 seasons and 91 episodes. Harris also voiced Debbie in the animated film "The Wild Thornberrys Movie" (2002) and the crossover film "Rugrats Go Wild" (2003). The series was one of the most popular television projects created by the animation studio Klasky Csupo, and provided Harris with a share of the spotlight for several years.
Harris had a supporting role in the crime comedy film "Poor White Trash" (2000). In the film, two teenagers from lower-class backgrounds start working together in heists in order to finance their college education. But their plans clash with those of their manipulative and opportunistic relatives, who each have agendas of their own. And the duo start hanging out with various local eccentrics in the process of their criminal plans. The film was noted for its ensemble cast, though the casting of 23-year-old Jaime Pressly in the role of of a scheming step-grandmother was regarded as the film's main appeal at the time.
In the autumn of 2000, Harris joined the main cast of the comedy-drama series "That's Life" (2000-2002). The series depicted life in the working-class suburbs of Newark, New Jersey. Harris played Plum Wilkinson, the girlfriend (and later wife) of police officer Paulie DeLucca (played by Kevin Dillon) and the close friend and college classmate of Paulie's sister Lydia DeLucca (played by Heather Paige Kent). The series was well-received by critics, but suffered from poor ratings throughout its run. It lasted for 2 seasons and 36 episodes. Its abrupt ending reportedly left several of its subplots unresolved.
In 2004, Harris became part of the main cast on the adult animated sitcom "Father of the Pride" (2004-2005). The main characters were anthropomorphic white lions, and Harris was cast as 16-year-old lioness Sierra. Her character was depicted as a rebellious teenager, who was frustrated by her inept parents. A subplot involving Sierra was that her boyfriend Dean was an older male, who already had children from a previous relationship. The series lasted for a single season and 14 episodes. While it started with strong ratings, the series' ratings rapidly declined during its run. The series won an Annie Award for its character design, which was considered unique.
During the following few years, Harris herself considered her career to have declined as she was offered no major roles in either film or television. When she heard of an upcoming remake of the original "Halloween" film, she decided to audition for a role. Rob Zombie, the film's director, was initially not interested in casting people who had participated in any of the older films in the series. He was, however, sufficiently impressed with Harris' audition to cast her in the role of Annie Brackett. Annie was a relatively minor character in the original "Halloween" film (where she was played by Nancy Kyes), but was she was re-imagined as one of the main characters in the remake. After capturing Annie, Mike Myers decides to torture her instead of killing her. She survives the events of the film. Harris' role required her to perform her first nude scene, and she noted in an interview that she felt more vulnerable than ever before.
"Halloween" (2007) was released to great success, and earned $80.4 million at the worldwide box office. It was at that time the highest-grossing film in the entire film series. As Harris had hoped, the film helped revive her career and she started being considered a potential asset to horror films. Among her next few projects were the fantasy horror film "The Black Waters of Echo's Pond" (2009), the slasher film "Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet" (2009), and the superhero comedy "Super Capers" (2009). "Blood Night" was the first time that Harris played the main villain in a film.
Also in 2009, Harris played Annie Brackett in the sequel "Halloween II". Annie was depicted as Laurie Strode's housemate, scarred due to previous torture but mentally stable in comparison to the traumatized Laurie. Michael Myers eventually kills Annie, which leads to the further deterioration of Laurie's sanity. The film earned only $39.5 million at the worldwide box office, and it was seen as far more brutal than the previous films in the series.
During the 2010s, Harris further established her reputation as a scream queen with many horror-themed roles. Among her most notable appearances was playing recurring character Marybeth Dunston in two films of the "Hatchet" film series. Harris replaced Tamara Feldman, who had originally portrayed the character. In 2013, Harris directed the horror comedy "Among Friends". This was her directorial debut.
In 2013, Harris was engaged to her boyfriend David Gross. In January 2014, the couple had a private wedding ceremony in Holualoa, Hawaii. Harris was 36-years-old at the time of her wedding, and she had no previous marriages or engagements. She had her first son in 2017, and a second son in 2018. In 2019, Harris played a member of the Manson Family in the historical film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", a film depiction of the Tate murders (1969).
Harris has had relatively few new roles in the early 2020s. She maintains a large fan following due to her previous roles. By 2022, Harris was 45-year-old. She has been an actress for most of her life, and seems to have no plans to retire yet. She has stated in interviews that despite several difficulties in her career over the years, she has managed to never quit trying. This determination has helped her endure in show business for decades.- Actress
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Born in Salisbury, Maryland, USA, following high school Linda studied for two years at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, before moving on to acting studies in New York. In New York she attended acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg. Her first parts were small parts in TV series, with her biggest break coming with her role in The Terminator (1984). Most known to public at large from her part in the TV series Beauty and the Beast (1987) (before Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), at least).- Actress
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Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni was born on February 25, 1966 in New York City. Her father, Anthony Pantaleoni, was a corporate lawyer, and her mother, Emily Ann (Patterson), worked as a dietitian and nutritionist. She is of Italian (from a paternal great-great-grandfather), Polish, English, Irish, Scottish, and German descent. Téa attended but did not complete studies at Sarah Lawrence College. She started out in acting as Lisa DiNapoli in Santa Barbara (1984) in 1989 and followed up with small roles in Switch (1991) and A League of Their Own (1992).
In 1992 she starred in the short-lived sitcom Flying Blind (1992). In 1994 she appeared in Wyatt Earp (1994) opposite Kevin Costner and The Counterfeit Contessa (1994) opposite D.W. Moffett. In 1995 she starred opposite Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in the popular film Bad Boys (1995). She also had a guest appearance on Frasier (1993) that same year.
She appeared in many successful films after that, such as Flirting with Disaster (1996), Deep Impact (1998), The Family Man (2000), Spanglish (2004), You Kill Me (2007) and most recently, she starred in the film Ghost Town (2008) opposite Greg Kinnear.
Tea was married to television commercial producer Neil Joseph Tardio Jr. from 1991 to 1995. In 1997 she married actor David Duchovny, with whom she has two children: Daughter West Duchovny (born April 24, 1999) and Son Kyd Miller Duchovny (born June 15, 2002).- Actress
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Actress Joan Cusack was born on October 11, 1962 in New York City and is the daughter of Nancy (née Carolan) and Dick Cusack. Her father was an advertising executive, writer and actor, and her mother was a mathematics teacher. Her siblings - Susie Cusack, John Cusack, Ann Cusack and Bill Cusack are also actors. Her family is of Irish descent.
Raised in Evanston, Illinois, Cusack was actively encouraged to explore her creativity by her parents, and as a child, she joined the Piven Theater Workshop. She went on to learn and perform improvisation at the Story Theater and The Ark. Later, she attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating with a bachelor's degree in English. Whilst at university, Cusack took some small film roles, but her big break came after graduation, when she joined the cast of the legendary "Saturday Night Live". However, she only stayed for one season before moving onto explore other projects.
Cusack produced a memorable turn in the acclaimed Broadcast News (1987), and she earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Working Girl (1988). Other notable films include Addams Family Values (1993), Corrina, Corrina (1994), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) and In & Out (1997), which earned her a second Oscar nomination. One of her most well-known roles was Rosalie Mullins, the principal of Horace Green Elementary School in School of Rock (2003). She also provided, superbly, the voice of Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl in Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010) and Toy Story 4 (2019). On television, she scored a role on Shameless (2011), with her work garnering her an Emmy nomination.
Joan Cusack is married to an attorney, Dick Burke. They have two sons - Dylan and Miles.- Actress
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The sultry, versatile, petite (5' 4") beauty Sherilyn Fenn was born Sheryl Ann Fenn in Detroit, Michigan, into a family of musicians. The youngest of three children, her mother, Arlene Quatro, played keyboard in rock bands, her aunt is rock-star Suzi Quatro, and her grandfather, Art Quatro, was a jazz musician. Her father, Leo Fenn, was the manager of such bands as The Pleasure Seekers (the all-girl band formed by the Quatro sisters), Alice Cooper, and The Billion Dollar Babies. Sherilyn's ancestry includes Irish, Italian, Hungarian, German, and Bohemian Czech.
Sherilyn traveled a lot with her divorced mother and two older brothers before the family settled in Los Angeles when she was seventeen. Fenn, who says herself she's demure didn't want to start with a new school again and soon enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
Fenn began her career with a number of B-movies including The Wild Life (1984) (alongside Chris Penn), skater film Thrashin' (1986) (opposite Josh Brolin) and teen-fantasy movie The Wraith (1986) (opposite Charlie Sheen). She had a memorable part in the cult teen-comedy Just One of the Guys (1985) in which she tries to seduce a teenage girl disguised as a boy, played by Joyce Hyser. Fenn landed her first starring role, as an engaged heiress to an old Southern family experiencing her sexual awakening in Zalman King's erotic drama film Two Moon Junction (1988), after which she said she wanted to hide for a year. Fenn won her most outstanding role and made an indelible impression on the public when she was cast by David Lynch and Mark Frost as the tantalizing Audrey Horne, the high-school femme fatale from the critically acclaimed TV series Twin Peaks (1990). The series ran from 1990 to 1991, and the character of Audrey was one of the most popular with fans, in particular for her unrequited love for FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan) and her style from the '50s (with her saddle shoes, plaid skirts and tight sweaters). Sherilyn made a memorable impression as the cherry stem-twisting siren. This was her breakout role; even now she says of her Twin Peaks (1990) experience: "It still makes me feel kind of proud and special to be part of something like that". In the show's second season, when the idea of pairing Audrey and Cooper was abandoned, Audrey was paired with other characters like Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) and John Justice Wheeler (Billy Zane). Sherilyn hit cult status when Lynch filmed her dancing on Angelo Badalamenti's music and with another memorable scene in which her character knotted a cherry stem with her tongue.
Shortly after shooting Twin Peaks' pilot episode, David Lynch gave her a small but impressive part in Wild at Heart (1990), as a girl injured in a car wreck, obsessed by the contents of her purse, opposite Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. According to Fenn, the turning point in her career was when she met veteran acting coach Roy London in 1990. She credits him with instilling confidence and newfound enthusiasm.
After two nominations (Emmy and Golden Globe) and covers for Rolling Stone and Playboy magazines, Fenn was propelled to stardom and became a major sex symbol. She was chosen as one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World", was named one of the "10 Most Beautiful Women in the World" by Us magazine, and one of the "100 Sexiest Women in the World" by FHM magazine. Fenn's classic looks - with her lily-white skin, vertiginous boomerang eyebrows, beauty mark next to her left eye and topaz eyes - were highlighted by renowned photographers like George Hurrell Sr., Steven Meisel, and Bettina Rheims, and led her to be compared to the ones like Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner. Fenn has had an eclectic career with a significant body of work following Twin Peaks (1990). She chose to focus on widening her range of roles and was determined to avoid typecasting. She turned down the Audrey Horne spin-off series that was offered to her, and unlike most of the cast, chose not to return for the 1992 prequel movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), as she was then shooting Of Mice and Men (1992). She proved her mettle as an actress with varied roles in neo-noir black comedy Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel (1991) (as a sultry femme fatale, opposite Whip Hubley and David Hewlett), huis-clos Diary of a Hitman (1991) (the directorial debut of her acting coach Roy London, in which she plays a fragile mother who confronts hitman Forest Whitaker), John Mackenzie's fictionalized biopic Ruby (1992), (as stripper Sheryl Ann DuJean, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike fictional character, who is a composite of several real-life women from Jack Ruby and president John Kennedy's entourage; opposite 'Danny Aiello' and Arliss Howard), romantic comedy Three of Hearts (1993) (as Kelly Lynch and William Baldwin's love interest), Carl Reiner's 1940s detective parody Fatal Instinct (1993) (as Armand Assante's lovesick secretary and Sean Young and Kate Nelligan's rival) and Showtime's biblical Slave of Dreams (1995), directed by Robert M. Young (as Potiphar's seductive wife Zulaikha, opposite Adrian Pasdar and Edward James Olmos, and produced by Dino De Laurentiis).
A highlight of Fenn's film career is Gary Sinise's film adaptation of Of Mice and Men (1992), in which she brought nuance to the role of a seductive and lonely country wife, desperately in need to talk to somebody, opposite Sinise and John Malkovich. In 1993, Fenn teamed up with David Lynch's daughter Jennifer Lynch and starred in her directorial debut Boxing Helena (1993) as a haughty seductress forced to live in a box after her limbs were amputated by love-obsessed surgeon Julian Sands in an effort to possess her (a role Kim Basinger backed out of). Both Lynch and Fenn were proud of their work in it but the film - which was overshadowed by the lawsuits against Kim Basinger after she dropped out - ultimately was a critical and commercial failure. Another outstanding performance was in NBC's miniseries Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995). During the shooting, Fenn fought to keep integrity in the script. Her priority was to respectfully and accurately portray Taylor, and she supported the original screenwriter's effort to concentrate on Taylor the person, not the legend. The same year she starred in an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1989) directed by Robert Zemeckis, alongside Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow, as the lover of Humphrey Bogart, who appeared in the episode via CGI special effects. She went on to star in independent films that have been well received on the festival circuit like Jon Harmon Feldman's Lovelife (1997) (as a low self-esteemed waitress, along with Bruce Davison, Jon Tenney, Carla Gugino and Saffron Burrows), romantic comedy Just Write (1997) (as the dream actress of Hollywood tour bus driver Jeremy Piven, who mistakes him for a famous screenwriter) and Adrian Pasdar's neo-noir directorial debut Cement (2000), a contemporary re-telling of "Othello", in which she played a tempting but imprudent femme fatale, alongside Chris Penn, Jeffrey Wright and Henry Czerny.
Tired of Hollywood, Fenn contemplated starting a European career when she starred opposite Ray Winstone in the British psychological drama and huis-clos Darkness Falls (1999) (as a wealthy, neglected wife, sequestered with her husband by a man determined to understand the events that led to his wife ending up in a coma). She eventually decided to return to the United-States and gained newfound enthusiasm with the lead role in Showtime's dark comedy Rude Awakening (1998) as Billie Frank, an alcoholic ex-soap actress who struggles with her self-destructive habits. Based upon creator/executive producer Claudia Lonow's experience, the series ran from 1998 to 2001 and co-starred Lynn Redgrave, Jonathan Penner and Mario Van Peebles. Following Rude Awakening (1998), Fenn's film and television credits have included Showtime's family comedy Off Season (2001), directed by Bruce Davison (along with Hume Cronyn, Rory Culkin, Adam Arkin and Davison; as a singer who takes care of her orphaned nephew), Matthew Ryan Hoge's The United States of Leland (2003) (as a woman who represents happiness and joie de vivre to Ryan Gosling), Showtime's Cavedweller (2004) (2004, along with Kyra Sedgwick and directed by Lisa Cholodenko), Geretta Geretta's Whitepaddy (2006) (opposite Lisa Bonet and Hill Harper, as a woman who struggles with her dysfunctional family after she reluctantly returned home and tries to fit in with her new neighborhood that has become predominantly black), Emily Skopov's Novel Romance (2006) (as a pregnancy shop owner, opposite Traci Lords and Paul Johansson), psychological thriller Presumed Dead (2006) (as a female detective working on a missing person case, who has to outwit crime novelist Duncan Regehr in order to get to the truth), and The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning (2007) (as a flirtatious version of Lulu Hogg).
Fenn has appeared along with Rob Estes and Milo Ventimiglia in a 2003 episode of Amy Sherman-Palladino's Gilmore Girls (2000), which was the pilot for a California-set spin-off, eventually dropped by the network. Sherman-Palladino brought her back in the series with a different part as Scott Patterson's ex-girlfriend and protective mother to his daughter (2006-2007). Fenn had previously had recurring parts on Dawson's Creek (1998), (2002, as Joshua Jackson's seductive boss) and Boston Public (2000) (2003-2004, as a porn star turned tutor). Other notable guest appearances have included 21 Jump Street (1987) (opposite her then-fiancé Johnny Depp), Friends (1994) (1997, as Matthew Perry's wooden-legged girlfriend), The Outer Limits (1995) (2001, as a duplicated scientist), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) (2002, as a manipulative actress), and The 4400 (2004) (2005, as Jean DeLynn Baker, a 4400 who has the ability to grow deadly toxin-emitting spores on her hands).
Fenn's interest in directing and children led her to step behind the camera to direct in 2006 a documentary film about the child enrichment program CosmiKids and Judy Julin, the program's founder. She subsequently joined its executive team as executive director of the film and television division.
On set, Sherilyn is noted for having a quirky sense of humor and a joie de vivre. Off-screen, Sherilyn is proud of the friendship she has maintained with her ex-hubby Toulouse Holliday, a musician and film technician. Sherilyn lives with her son, Myles, and two cats: Ophelia and Redmond. Sherilyn practices meditative kundalini yoga, and every room in her house has feng shui elements-- crystals in one corner, water in another. Sherilyn enjoys biking, swimming and cooking, and of course being a mom: "After I had my son, I found life much funnier and brighter".- Actress
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One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor Robert Stephens and to playwright Beverley Cross. Her marriage to Stephens ended in divorce in 1974. She was married to Cross until his death in 1999. She had two sons with Stephens, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens who are also actors.
Maggie Smith's career began at the Oxford Playhouse in the 1950s. She made her film debut in 1956 as one of the party guests in Child in the House (1956). She has since performed in over sixty films and television series with some of the most prominent actors and actresses in the world. These include: Othello (1965) with Laurence Olivier, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), California Suite (1978) with Michael Caine and Jane Fonda, A Room with a View (1985), Richard III (1995) with Ian McKellen and Jim Broadbent, Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini (1999) with Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Cher and Gosford Park (2001) with Kristin Scott Thomas and Clive Owen, directed by Robert Altman. Maggie Smith has also been nominated for an Oscar six times and won twice, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978).
Smith later appeared in the very successful 'Harry Potter' franchise as the formidable Professor McGonagall as well as in Julian Fellowes' ITV drama series, Downton Abbey (2010) (2010-2011) as the Dowager Countess of Grantham.- Actress
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Multi-talented, multi-award-winning actress Kathleen (Doyle) Bates was born on June 28, 1948, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the youngest of three girls born to Bertye Kathleen (Talbot), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer. Her grandfather was author Finis L. Bates. Kathy has English, as well as Irish, Scottish, and German, ancestry, and one of her ancestors, an Irish emigrant to New Orleans, once served as President Andrew Jackson's doctor.
Kathy discovered acting appearing in high school plays and studied drama at Southern Methodist University, graduating in 1969. With her mind firmly set, she moved to New York City in 1970 and paid her dues by working everything from a cash register to taking lunch orders. Things started moving quickly up the ladder after giving a tour-de-force performance alongside Christopher Walken at Buffalo's Studio Arena Theatre in Lanford Wilson's world premiere of "Lemon Sky" in 1970, but she also had a foreshadowing of the heartbreak to come after the successful show relocated to New York's off-Broadway Playhouse Theatre without her and Walken wound up winning a Drama Desk award.
By the mid-to-late 1970s, Kathy was treading the boards frequently as a rising young actress of the New York and regional theater scene. She appeared in "Casserole" and "A Quality of Mercy" (both 1975) before earning exceptional reviews for her role of Joanne in "Vanities". She took her first Broadway curtain call in 1980's "Goodbye Fidel," which lasted only six performances. She then went directly into replacement mode when she joined the cast of the already-established and highly successful "Fifth of July" in 1981.
Kathy made a false start in films with Taking Off (1971), in which she was billed as "Bobo Bates". She didn't film again until Straight Time (1978), starring Dustin Hoffman, and that part was not substantial enough to cause a stir. Things turned hopeful, however, when Kathy and the rest of the female ensemble were given the chance to play their respective Broadway parts in the film version of Robert Altman's Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). It was a juicy role for Kathy and film audiences finally started noticing the now 34-year-old.
Still and all, it was the New York stage that continued to earn Kathy awards and acclaim. She was pure textbook to any actor studying how to disappear into a role. Her characters ranged from free and life-affirming to downright pitiable. Despite winning a Tony Award nomination and Outer Critic's Circle Award for her stark, touchingly sad portrait of a suicidal daughter in 1983's "'night, Mother" and the Obie and Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for her powerhouse job as a romantic misfit in "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune," Kathy had no box-office pull, however, and was never a strong consideration when the roles transferred to the screen. Her award-winning stage went to established film stars. First Sissy Spacek took over her potent role as the suicidal Jessie Cates in 'night, Mother (1986), then Michelle Pfeiffer seized the moment to play her dumpy lover character in Frankie and Johnny (1991). It would take Oscar glory to finally rectify the injustice.
It was Kathy's fanatical turn as the drab, chunky, porcine-looking psychopath Annie Wilkes, who kidnaps her favorite author (James Caan) and subjects him to a series of horrific tortures, that finally turned the tide for her in Hollywood. With the 1990 shocker Misery (1990), based on the popular Stephen King novel, Bates and Caan were box office magic. Moreover, Kathy captured the "Best Actress" Oscar and Golden Globe award, a first in that genre (horror) for that category. To add to her happiness she married Tony Campisi, also an actor, in 1991.
Quality film scripts now started coming her way and the 1990s proved to be a rich and rewarding time for her. First, she and another older "overnight" film star, fellow Oscar winner Jessica Tandy, starred together in the modern portion of the beautifully nuanced, flashback period piece Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). She then outdid herself as the detached and depressed housekeeper accused of murdering her abusive husband (David Strathairn) in Dolores Claiborne (1995). Surprisingly, she was left out of the Oscar race for these two excellent performances. Not so, however, for her flashy political advisor Libby Holden in the movie Primary Colors (1998), receiving praise and a "Best Supporting Actress" nomination.
Kathy has continued to work prolifically on TV as a 14-time Emmy winner or nominee thus far. She has also taken to directing a couple of TV-movies on the sly. As most actors, she has been in hit and miss TV shows. On the hit side, she has earned a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Jay Leno's manager playing tough politics in The Late Shift (1996) and played to the hilt the cruel-minded orphanage operator, Miss Hannigan, in Annie (1999) for which she also earned an Emmy nom. She has done some eye-catching, offbeat turns on regular series such as Six Feet Under (2001) (for which she also earned a DGA award for helming an episode), The Office (2005), Harry's Law (2011) and especially American Horror Story (2011) for which she won an Emmy as Ethel Darling. She also won an Emmy for a guest episode on the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003).
Interesting millennium filming have included a Catholic school's Mother Superior in the comic drama Bruno (2000); Jesse James' mother in American Outlaws (2001); a quirky, liberal mom in About Schmidt (2002) for which she earned another "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar nomination; a brief but potent turn as Gertrude Stein in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011); Queen Victoria in the adventurous remake of Around the World in 80 Days (2004); wacky parent types in the comedies Failure to Launch (2006) and Relative Strangers (2006); Mother Claus in the seasonal farce Fred Claus (2007); an over-gushy foster mother in the dramedy The Great Gilly Hopkins (2015); and a wrenching performance as the mother of a suspected terrorist in Richard Jewell (2019) for which she earned her third "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar nomination.
Divorced from husband Campisi since 1997, Kathy has been the Executive Committee Chair of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors.- Margo Martindale was born July 18, 1951 in Jacksonville, Texas, to Margaret (Pruitt) and William Everett Martindale, a lumber company owner and dog handler. She is the youngest of three children, and the only daughter. Margo attended Lon Marris College, and later transferred to University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and did a summer study at Harvard University. She made her film debut appearance in Days of Thunder (1990), she played the minor role of Donna. Notable roles include: Sister Colleen, Susan Sarandon's fellow nun in Dead Man Walking (1995). She played a brief but memorable role as the selfish mother to Hilary Swank's character in Million Dollar Baby (2004).
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Margot Elise Robbie was born on July 2, 1990 in Dalby, Queensland, Australia to Scottish parents. Her mother, Sarie Kessler, is a physiotherapist, and her father, is Doug Robbie. She comes from a family of four children, having two brothers and one sister. She graduated from Somerset College in Mudgeeraba, Queensland, Australia, a suburb in the Gold Coast hinterland of South East Queensland, where she and her siblings were raised by their mother and spent much of her time at the farm belonging to her grandparents. In her late teens, she moved to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to pursue an acting career.
From 2008-2010, Robbie played the character of Donna Freedman in the long-running Australian soap opera, Neighbours (1985), for which she was nominated for two Logie Awards. She set off to pursue Hollywood opportunities, quickly landing the role of Laura Cameron on the short-lived ABC series, Pan Am (2011). She made her big screen debut in the film, About Time (2013).
Robbie rose to fame co-starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, portraying the role of Naomi Lapaglia in Martin Scorsese's Oscar nominated film, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). She was nominated for a Breakthrough Performance MTV Movie Award, and numerous other awards.
In 2014, Robbie founded her own production company, LuckyChap Entertainment. She also appeared in the World War II romantic-drama film, Suite Française (2014). She starred in Focus (2015) and Z for Zachariah (2015), and made a cameo in The Big Short (2015).
In 2016, she married Tom Ackerley in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia.
She starred as Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan (2016), Tanya Vanderpoel in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016) and as DC comics villain Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (2016), for which she was nominated for a Teen Choice Award, and many other awards.
She portrayed figure skater Tonya Harding in the biographical film I, Tonya (2017), receiving critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.- Actress
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As she inherited her love for the arts by her father, well-known playwright, actor, director and novelist Mario Peña, it is not hard to understand that actress Elizabeth Pena already had designs to become an actress by the time she was eight years old.
Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 23, 1959, the petite (5' 2") actress was raised in New York City. Elizabeth's (and sister Tania's) parents, Cuban immigrants Mario and Estella Margarita Peña, would achieve a strong Latino reputation as the founders of the off-Broadway Latin-American Theatre Ensemble. They also encouraged Elizabeth's talent. In 1975, the young teenager became a founding member of the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, and two years later graduated from New York's High School of Performing Arts, now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts.
Elizabeth found occasional work in repertory theater and in television commercials. Making her film debut in the independent Spanish-speaking feature El Super (1979), about Cuban refugees, she continued with playing a long line of independent and rebellious characters, which showed plenty of attitude and independence. Playing offbeat roles -- from a knife-threatening waitress to a disco queen -- she appeared in such early films as They All Laughed (1981) and Crossover Dreams (1985). Elizabeth's big break came in the form a support role in the hugely popular and entertaining comedy Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), co-starring Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss and Nick Nolte, in which she stole several scenes as the sultry, smoky-voiced, politically-minded maid Carmen.
Two consecutive short-lived television series came about around this time. Her first, the ensemble comedy Tough Cookies (1986), had her playing a police officer, and the second was the title housekeeper role in the sitcom I Married Dora (1987). High in demand now, Elizabeth continued to spice up both the big and small screen in such roles as Ritchie Valens' stepsister-in-law in the well-received biopic La Bamba (1987); a drug enforcement agent in the miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story (1990); PTSD-suffering Tim Robbins' live-in girlfriend in the complex drama Jacob's Ladder (1990); and a dedicated legal secretary on the corporate drama series Shannon's Deal (1990) starring Jamey Sheridan.
Honors also came Elizabeth's way when she received the Independent Spirit and Bravo awards for the film Lone Star (1996), and four ALMA Awards for her performances in the television movie Contagious (1997), the films Tortilla Soup (2001) and Rush Hour (1998), and her regular role on the Latino drama series Resurrection Blvd. (2000).
Into the millennium, Elizabeth found steady employment on television with guest roles on Boston Public (2000), CSI: Miami (2002), Without a Trace (2002), Numb3rs (2005), Ghost Whisperer (2005), Charlie's Angels (2011), Prime Suspect (2011), Common Law (2012), and Modern Family (2009). One of her last roles was on the television series Matador (2014). She also found herself further down the credits in films such as On the Borderline (2001), Transamerica (2005), The Lost City (2005), Mother and Child (2009), The Perfect Family (2011), Plush (2013), and Grandma (2015). Three other films -- Girl on the Edge (2015), Ana Maria in Novela Land (2015), and The Song of Sway Lake (2018) -- were released posthumously. She also provided a voice in the popular Disney/Pixar animated film The Incredibles (2004).
A chronic alcohol problem severely hampered Elizabeth's life and she died suddenly from cirrhosis of the liver in Los Angeles, California on October 14, 2014, at age 55. She was survived by her second husband (from 1994), Hans Rolla, and their two children, son Kælan and daughter Fiona.- Actress
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American actress and political activist Ashley Judd was born Ashley Tyler Ciminella on April 19, 1968, in Granada Hills, California. She grew up in a family of successful performing artists as the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd and the sister of Wynonna Judd. While she is best known for an ongoing acting career spanning more than two decades, she has increasingly become involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism.- Actress
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Elizabeth EG Daily is an American actress, singer, and one of the top talents in the world of voiceover. You might know her in the classics as Dottie from "Peewee's Big Adventure" to "Valley Girl," or the classic "Smelly Cat" episode of Friends. Maybe Candy from The Devil's Rejects.
EG is said to be the voice of your childhood as Tommy Pickles from "Rugrats" or Buttercup from the "Powerpuff Girls," Babe from Babe: Pig in the City, Young Mumble from the Academy Award winning Happy Feet.
She also provided her voice as a singer, many classic projects, such as the theme song from Two and Half Men. Singing in Grand Theft Auto, and many classic soundtracks; Scarface, The Breakfast Club, Theif of Hearts. With lots of new current music on all digital platforms.
Elizabeth EG Daily continues to work on multiple different projects, creating more iconic acting roles, singing, VO, and producing.- Actress
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Cleo King was born on 21 August 1962 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Pineapple Express (2008), Magnolia (1999) and The Hangover (2009).- Actress
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Born to immigrants in New York City, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, is from Beijing & her father, Tom Liu, a civil engineer, is from Shanghai. Once relegated to "ethnic" parts, the energetic actress is finally earning her stripes as an across-the-board leading lady.
She graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1986 & enrolled in NYU. However, she was discouraged by the dark and sarcastic atmosphere, so she transferred to the University of Michigan after her freshman year. She graduated w/ a degree in Asian Languages & Cultures, managing to squeeze in some additional training in dance, voice, fine arts & acting. During her senior year, she auditioned for a small part in a production of Alice in Wonderland and walked away with the lead. Encouraged by the experience, she decided to take the plunge into professional acting. She moved to L.A., splitting her time between auditions & food service day jobs. She eventually scored a guest appearance as a waitress on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990). That performance led to more walk-on parts in shows like NYPD Blue (1993), ER (1994) & The X-Files (1993). In 1996, she was cast as an ambitious college student on Rhea Perlman's ephemeral sitcom Pearl (1996).
She first appeared on the big screen as an ex-girlfriend in Jerry Maguire (1996) (she had previously filmed a scene in the indie Bang (1995), but it was shelved for 2 years). She then waded through a series of supporting parts in small films before landing her big break on Ally McBeal (1997). She initially auditioned for the role of Nelle Porter, which went to Portia de Rossi. However, writer-producer David E. Kelley was so impressed w/ her that he promised to write a part for her in an upcoming episode. The part turned out to be that of growling, ill-tempered lawyer Ling Woo, which she filled w/ such aplomb that she was signed on as a regular cast member.
The "Ally" win gave her film career a much-needed boost-in 1999, she was cast as a dominatrix in the Mel Gibson action flick Payback (1999) & as a hitchhiker in the ill-received boxing saga Play It to the Bone (1999). The following year brought even larger roles: first as the kidnapped Princess Pei Pei in Jackie Chan's western Shanghai Noon (2000), then as one-third of the comely crime-fighting trio in Charlie's Angels (2000).
When she's not hissing at clients or throwing well-coiffed punches, she keeps busy w/ an eclectic mix of off-screen hobbies. She practices the martial art of Kali-Eskrima-Silat (knife-and-stick fighting), skis, rock climbs, rides horses &plays the accordion. In 1993, she exhibited a collection of multimedia art pieces at the Cast Iron Gallery in SoHo (New York), after which she won a grant to study & create art in China. Her hectic schedule doesn't leave much time for romantic intrigue, but she says she prefers to keep that side of her life uncluttered.- Actress
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Uma Karuna Thurman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a highly unorthodox and internationally-minded family. She is the daughter of Nena Thurman (née Birgitte Caroline von Schlebrügge), a fashion model and socialite who now runs a mountain retreat, and of Robert Thurman (Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman), a professor and academic who is one of the nation's foremost Buddhist scholars. Uma's mother was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to a German father and a Swedish mother (who herself was of Swedish, Danish, and German descent). Uma's father, a New Yorker, has English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry. Uma grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, where her father worked at Amherst College.
She and her siblings all have names deriving from Buddhist mythology; and Middle American behavior was little understood, much less pursued. And so it was that the young Thurman confronted childhood with an odd name and eccentric home life -- and nature seemingly conspired against her as well. She is six feet tall, and from an early age towered over everyone else in class. Her famously large feet would soon sprout to size 11 -- and even beyond that -- and although they would eventually be lovingly filmed by director Quentin Tarantino, as a child she generally wore the biggest shoes in class, which only provided another subject of ridicule. Even her long nose moved one of her mother's friends to helpfully suggest rhinoplasty -- to the ten-year-old Thurman. To make matters worse yet, the family constantly relocated, making the gangly, socially inept Thurman perpetually the new kid in class. The result was an exceptionally awkward, self-conscious, lonely and alienated childhood.
Unsurprisingly, the young Thurman enjoyed making believe she was someone other than herself, and so thrived at acting in school plays -- her sole successful extracurricular activity. This interest, and her lanky frame, perfect for modeling, led the 15-year-old Thurman to New York City for high school and modeling work (including a layout in Glamour Magazine) as she sought acting roles. The roles soon came, starting with a few formulaic and forgettable Hollywood products, but immediately followed by Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988), both of which brought much attention to her unorthodox sensuality and performances that intriguingly combined innocence and worldliness. The weird, gangly girl became a sex symbol virtually overnight.
Thurman continued to be offered good roles in Hollywood pictures into the early '90s, the least commercially successful but probably best-known of which was her smoldering, astonishingly-adult performance as June, Henry Miller's wife, in Henry & June (1990), the first movie to actually receive the dreaded NC-17 rating in the USA. After a celebrated start, Thurman's career stalled in the early '90s with movies such as the mediocre Mad Dog and Glory (1993). Worse, her first starring role was in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), which had endured a tortured journey from cult-favorite book to big-budget movie, and was a critical and financial debacle. Fortunately, Uma bounced back with a brilliant performance as Mia Wallace, that most unorthodox of all gangster's molls, in Tarantino's lauded, hugely successful Pulp Fiction (1994), a role for which Thurman received an Academy Award nomination.
Since then, Thurman has had periods of flirting with roles in arty independents such as A Month by the Lake (1995), and supporting roles in which she has lent some glamorous presence to a mixed batch of movies, such as Beautiful Girls (1996) and The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996). Thurman returned to smaller films after playing the villainess Poison Ivy in the reviled Joel Schumacher effort Batman & Robin (1997) and Emma Peel in a remake of The Avengers (1998). She worked with Woody Allen and Sean Penn on Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and starred in Richard Linklater's drama Tape (2001) opposite Hawke. Thurman also won a Golden Globe award for her turn in the made-for-television film Hysterical Blindness (2002), directed by Mira Nair.
A return to the mainstream spotlight came when Thurman re-teamed with Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), a revenge flick the two had dreamed up on the set of Pulp Fiction (1994). She also turned up in the John Woo cautioner Paycheck (2003) that same year. The renewed attention was not altogether welcome because Thurman was dealing with the break-up of her marriage with Hawke at about this time. Thurman handled the situation with grace, however, and took her surging popularity in stride. She garnered critical acclaim for her work in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) and was hailed as Tarantino's muse. Thurman reunited with Pulp Fiction (1994) dance partner John Travolta for the Get Shorty (1995) sequel Be Cool (2005) and played Ulla in The Producers (2005).
Thurman had been briefly married to Gary Oldman, from 1990 to 1992. In 1998, she married Ethan Hawke, her co-star in the offbeat futuristic thriller Gattaca (1997). The couple had two children, Levon and Maya. Hawke and Thurman filed for divorce in 2004.- Actress
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Canadian actress, writer, and comedian, Catherine O'Hara gained recognition as one of the original cast members on the Canadian television sketch comedy show SCTV (1976). On the series, she impersonated the likes of Lucille Ball, Tammy Faye Bakker, Gilda Radner, Katharine Hepburn, and Brooke Shields. O'Hara stayed with the show for its entirety (1976-1984). She went on to devote her talents to several films directed by Tim Burton, including Beetlejuice (1988), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and later, Frankenweenie (2012). O'Hara also frequently collaborated with director and writer, Christopher Guest, appearing in his mockumentary films, three of which earned her awards and nominations; Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), and For Your Consideration (2006). Recently, O'Hara can be seen on the Canadian television comedy series Schitt's Creek (2015). Her work in the series earned two Canadian Screen Awards for Best Lead Actress (2016 and 2017).- Actress
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Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis cast her as the female lead in King Kong (1976). The film attracted much unfavorable comment and, as a result, Lange was off the screen for three years. She was given a small but showy part in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), before giving a memorable performance in Bob Rafelson's The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), as an adulterous waitress. The following year, she won rave reviews for her exceptional portrayal of actress Frances Farmer in Frances (1982) and a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her work in Sydney Pollack's Tootsie (1982) (as a beautiful soap-opera actress). She was also outstanding as country singer Patsy Cline in Karel Reisz's Sweet Dreams (1985) and as a lawyer who defends her father and discovers his past in Music Box (1989). Other important films include Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991) (as a frightened housewife) and Tony Richardson's Blue Sky (1994), for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award as the mentally unbalanced wife of a military officer. She made her Broadway debut in 1992, playing "Blanche" in Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire".- Actress
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Pam Grier was born in Winston-Salem, NC, one of four children of Gwendolyn Sylvia (Samuels), a nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier Jr., an Air Force mechanic. Pam has been a major African-American star from the early 1970s. Her career started in 1971, when Roger Corman of New World Pictures launched her with The Big Doll House (1971), about a women's penitentiary, and The Big Bird Cage (1972). Her strong role put her into a five-year contract with Samuel Z. Arkoff of American-International Pictures, and she became a leading lady in action films such as Jack Hill's Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), the comic strip character Friday Foster (1975) and William Girdler's 'Sheba, Baby' (1975). She continued working with American-International, where she portrayed William Marshall's vampire victim in the Blacula (1972) sequel, Scream Blacula Scream (1973).
During the 1980s she became a regular on Miami Vice (1984) and played a supporting role as an evil witch in Ray Bradbury's and Walt Disney Pictures' Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), then returned to action as Steven Seagal's partner in Above the Law (1988). Her most famous role of the 1990s was probably Jackie Brown (1997), directed by Quentin Tarantino, which was an homage to her earlier 1970s action roles, She occasionally did supporting roles, as in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), In Too Deep (1999) and a funny performance in Jawbreaker (1999). She also appeared in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (2001) and co-starred with Snoop Dogg in Bones (2001). Her entire career of over 30 years has brought only success for this beautiful and talented actress.
A sister of Grier's died from cancer in 1990 and the son of that sister committed suicide because of his mother's illness. Pam herself was diagnosed with cancer in 1988 and given 18 months to live, which has had an effect on how she has chosen to live. She has never been wed, although she has been romantically linked to Richard Pryor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the past.- Blue-eyed brunette Meg Foster was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on May 10, 1948 to David and Nancy. She has four siblings and grew up in Rowayton, Connecticut. Foster studied acting at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse.
Foster's first role came about in 1969, when she appeared in an episode of NET Playhouse (1964). Throughout the '70s, she guest starred in numerous TV shows including Barnaby Jones (1973), The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), and Hawaii Five-O (1968), and played Hester Prynne, a young woman who has an affair with a pastor, in the miniseries The Scarlet Letter (1979). Foster did not really come to attention until 1982, though, when she replaced Loretta Swit as Christine Cagney in Cagney & Lacey (1981); she herself was later replaced by Sharon Gless (CBS reportedly wanted a more "feminine" actress playing the role of the detective).
Foster began to appear in more movies throughout the late '80s, primarily Masters of the Universe (1987), in which she played the nefarious Evil-Lyn. Other notable films include the satirical science fiction flick They Live (1988), the horror sequel Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy (1989), and the comedic martial arts movie Blind Fury (1989) (Terry O'Quinn also appeared in the latter two).
Foster continued to work prolifically throughout the '90s, mostly appearing in science fiction films. She also guest starred in many popular television shows such as Quantum Leap (1989), ER (1994), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), Murder, She Wrote (1984), and Sliders (1995).
After appearing in a 2000 episode of Xena: Warrior Princess (1995), Foster took a decade-long break from the acting industry. She returned in 2011 with roles in indie flicks 25 Hill (2011) and Sebastian (2011), and had a villainous role as a revenge-seeking witch in Rob Zombie's '70s-esque horror movie The Lords of Salem (2012). Additionally, Foster appeared in the TV show The Originals (2013), as well as Pretty Little Liars (2010) and its short-lived spin-off Ravenswood (2013). She re-teamed with Rob Zombie in 2016 for his horror film 31 (2016), in which Foster plays a kidnapped carnival worker.
Foster has a son, Christopher, with Ron Starr. At one point, she was married to actor Stephen McHattie. - Actress
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Alyson Hannigan was born in Washington, D.C. to Emilie (Posner), a real estate agent, and Al Hannigan, a truck driver. She began her acting career in Atlanta at the young age of 4 in commercials sponsoring such companies as McDonald's, Six Flags, and Oreos. She is a seasoned television actress, guest starring in Picket Fences (1992), Roseanne (1988), Touched by an Angel (1994) and the The Torkelsons (1991) before starring in her most notorious roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) as "Willow Rosenberg" and How I Met Your Mother (2005) as "Lily Aldrin."In those Eps of Buffy with Willow's Doppleganger I thought she did a great job transforming herself and same thing in those eps were Willow was evil- Actress
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Juliette Lewis has been recognized as one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile actors of her generation since she first stunned audiences and critics alike with her Oscar-nominated performance as "Danielle Bowden" in Cape Fear (1991). To date, she has worked with some of the most revered directors in the industry, including Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Lasse Hallström, Oliver Stone, and Garry Marshall. Whether lending dramatic authenticity or a natural comedic flair to her roles, Lewis graces the screen with remarkable range and an original and captivating style.
Lewis was born in Los Angeles, Californa, to Glenis (Duggan) Batley, a graphic designer, and Geoffrey Lewis, an actor. By the age of six, she knew she wanted to be a performer. At twelve, Lewis landed her first leading role in the Showtime miniseries Home Fires (1987). After appearing in several TV sitcoms including The Wonder Years (1988), she made her move to film, starring with Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) and with Jennifer Jason Leigh in the drama Crooked Hearts (1991). At 16, Lewis starred opposite Brad Pitt in the critically acclaimed television movie Too Young to Die? (1990), catching the attention of Martin Scorsese, who cast her in his thriller Cape Fear (1991). Her powerful scenes with Robert De Niro captured the quiet complexities of adolescence and earned her an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe nomination for "Best Supporting Actress". Her auditorium scene with De Niro went down in movie history as one of cinema's classic scenes.
Lewis next worked with Woody Allen in Husbands and Wives (1992), playing a self-assured college coed with a penchant for older men and, particularly, her married professor. She quickly followed suit with a succession of starring roles in a variety of blockbusters and critically acclaimed projects including Kalifornia (1993), Romeo Is Bleeding (1993), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), and Natural Born Killers (1994), Oliver Stone's controversial media satire about two mass murderers who become legendary folk heroes. Lewis's other credits include the Nora Ephron comedy Mixed Nuts (1994), with Steve Martin and Adam Sandler; the sci-fi action film Strange Days (1995) with Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett; Quentin Tarantino's vampire tale From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) with George Clooney; The Evening Star (1996) with Shirley MacLaine; the Garry Marshall-directed The Other Sister (1999), and Todd Phillips' Old School (2003), co-starring opposite Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Will Ferrell as well as Starsky & Hutch (2004). In addition to her film career, Lewis has continued to add roles to her growing list of television credits with a performance in Showtime's My Louisiana Sky (2001), for which she secured an EMMY nomination, and a starring role in the Mira Nair-directed HBO's film Hysterical Blindness (2002), alongside Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands.
After a six-year hiatus from film to pursue her burgeoning music career exclusively, Lewis announced her return to acting with a handful of upcoming movies. Juliette starred alongside Elliot Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig and Jimmy Fallon in the comedy Whip It (2009). The film was released by Fox Searchlight on October 2nd, 2009. Directed by Drew Barrymore, the film tells the story of an ex-beauty pageant contestant that leaves her crowns behind after joining a roller derby team. Lewis plays "Iron Maven", the star of a top derby team. Next, she joined the cast of the acclaimed European animated thriller Metropia (2009), as the voice of "Nina". She also appeared in the romantic comedy The Switch (2010), opposite Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, and Patrick Wilson. The film tells the story of a single mother (Aniston) who decides to have a child using a sperm donor. Juliette plays "Debbie Epstein", the best friend of Aniston's character. Lewis also appears in Sympathy for Delicious (2010), Mark Ruffalo's directorial debut. The film follows a paralyzed DJ, struggling to survive on the streets of LA who turns to faith healing and mysteriously develops the ability to cure the sick. Juliette plays "Ariel", costarring alongside Orlando Bloom, Mark Ruffalo, and Laura Linney. The film took home the US Dramatic Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Most recently, Juliette Lewis appears in the indie-drama Conviction (2010), which stars Hilary Swank, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver, and Sam Rockwell. She plays "Roseanna Perry" in the true story of an unemployed single mother (Swank) who saw her brother begin serving a life sentence in 1983 for murder and robbery. The role has won Lewis praise from audiences and critics, alike, for her performance, with USA Today saying, "Juliette Lewis has an indelible role" and the San Francisco Chronicle saying "Her character work should be studied in schools. Just remarkable". In addition to Conviction (2010), Lewis also makes a cameo in Todd Phillips's comedy, Due Date (2010), starring Robert Downey Jr., Michelle Monaghan, and Zach Galifianakis.
Beginning in 2004, Juliette took a hiatus from acting to embark on a musical journey. After six years, two full length albums and countless high profile tours and festival gigs with her band, 'Juliette & the Licks', Juliette set out on a solo career. Releasing "Terra Incognita" last fall, the album has taken her all across the world from Europe to Japan to Turkey, Australia, North America and Canada. For more information on Juliette Lewis' music, please visit her MySpace page. Juliette Lewis resides in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Kathleen Kinmont Smith was born in Los Angeles, California to actress, Abby Dalton and businessman, Jack Smith. Kathleen is of Swedish, Irish and Welsh descent. She began her acting career in commercials as a young child and then moved on to a short lived modeling career before she started seriously pursuing acting in film and television as a young teen. Kathleen is best known for her roles in horror films, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Meyers (1988) and Bride of Re-Animator (1989) Kathleen also starred in Stephen J. Cannell television series, Renegade (1992-1996) She starred and costarred in numerous feature films and worked with writer/director Nick Vallelonga in The Corporate Ladder (1997) and Tom Hanks writing and directorial debut, That Thing You Do! (1996) Brat's, Zoe Valentine (2019) Hallmark's, A Merry Christmas Match (2019) and feature films, The Silent Natural (2019) and Ernesto's Manifesto (2019) Kathleen has also stepped behind the camera to write, produce and direct short thriller, Mrs. Sweeney (2013) and TV pilot, Fame Game (2014)- Actress
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Lin attended the University of Michigan, where she was an Art History major, although acting in as many University productions as possible, including "Bye Bye Birdie" and "On The Town". After U of M, she attended Columbia University School of the Arts, and acquired a Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting. She stayed in New York upon graduation and worked in numerous off- and off-off- Broadway productions, as well as Lincoln Center and Broadway. She has studied with some of the finest: Uta Hagen, Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. Lin is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio.- Actress
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Kevin Smith called her an American Pop Icon and John Waters called her the ultimate bad girl. While her early notoriety brought her international fame, her determination, grit, and talent have garnered her respect in many areas of the entertainment industry. She has appeared in dozens of films and television shows such as Roger Corman's cult classic Not of This Earth, John Water's Crybaby, Marvel's Blade, Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno, to the award-winning Excision; from Melrose Place, Roseanne, Will & Grace to series regular roles on NBC's Profiler and Syfy's First Wave. Her memoir Traci Lords Underneath It All (HarperCollins) was a NY Times Bestseller, and her pioneering techno album 1000 Fires topped the Billboard Dance Chart and was featured on both the Mortal Combat and Virtuosity soundtracks earning double platinum status. Lords is an award-winning voice over artist and has a vintage inspired line of clothing. In 2020, she made her stage debut as Gloria in the revival of Tom Eyen's cult classic Women Behind Bar which is now streaming on Broadway World.
Lords is an Ohio native born to Patricia and Louis Kuzma. Young Nora Louise Kuzma spent her early days in rural Steubenville, Ohio shuttled between her divorced parent's houses. It was then that her mother began a relationship with a man named Roger Hayes and relocated to Southern California. Teenage Nora missed her father terribly and began to treat Roger as a father figure. Her mother eventually realized that Roger was not the man she had thought he was and ended the relationship but left Nora in Roger's care, claiming she was overwhelmed and couldn't provide for the teenager. In Traci's memoir Underneath It All, she states that Roger groomed her for nude modeling and sex trafficked her at that time. Porn agent Jim South has confirmed in various interviews that it was Roger Hayes who brought the 15-year-old to his office in Van Nuys, California in 1984. Armed with a fake ID, no one questioned the stunning woman-child who signed on as a figure model which eventually led to adult films. With her rebellious attitude and stunning looks, she shot to stardom quickly in the X-rated world.
In May 1986, the Traci Lords story broke. The media had a field day with the tale of the troubled bad girl who tricked the porn world. The FBI questioned Lords and announced that because she was a minor, she was not responsible and that all films that featured her must be destroyed. Lords was never arrested or charged with any crimes but was punished in other ways. She was forced to pay estimated taxes on her purported income. And has faced years of criticism and ridicule because of her history in adult movies but eventually carved an impressive body of work in mainstream Hollywood where she continues to thrive today. Lords' lives in Southern California with her husband and their son.- Actress
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Rebecca Alie Romijn was born on November 6, 1972 in Berkeley, California. Her father was Dutch-born and worked as a custom-furniture maker. Her mother was American-born, with Dutch and English ancestry, and was a teacher of English. Rebecca attended Berkeley High School where her nickname was the "Jolly Blond Giant", then she attended the University of California at Santa Cruz where she majored in Music, but left in 1995.
She was a natural for modeling, and has posed for Sports Illustrated, Christian Dior and Victoria's Secret, to name but a few. Rebecca first met John Stamos in 1994, at a Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and had her first date with him at Disneyland. They married in September 1998, but have since gotten divorced.
Rebecca's favorite foods are fillet mignon, tuna sashimi and Häagen-Dazs Cappuccino Commotion ice cream. But to keep her weight at a svelte 130 pounds, she stays fit with a rigorous stretching and strengthening routine (her firm body tone is evident when compared to photos of her earlier modeling, where she was very slim but not toned). Rebecca's most famous movie role, so far, was as the shapeshifting Mystique in X-Men (2000), based on the long-running comic book series about teenage mutant superheroes (that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created in 1962). To play Mystique every day, Rebecca had to start out nude, and then two female makeup artists would apply blue body paint and other stick-on parts for 8 hours a day. Rebecca told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) that things like tissue paper would stick to her hips; and, one day, the long hours of wearing sticky paint makeup made her so upset that director Bryan Singer told her to have a glass of white wine and relax. Notwithstanding those technical difficulties, X-Men (2000) was a box-office bonanza, and Rebecca's future in films was assured.- Actress
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Spencer is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, which she claims is the proverbial buckle of the Bible belt. She's the sixth of seven siblings and holds a BS in Liberal Arts from Auburn University. A "closet" lover of acting, this practical Alabamian knew that she'd someday work in the film industry, but never dreamed it would be in front of the camera. In 1995, acclaimed director Joel Schumacher changed all that by giving her a small part opposite Sandra Bullock in the hit film A Time to Kill, and Spencer was on her way. In 1996, she teamed up with Bullock again in Bullock's directorial debut of Making Sandwiches, a short film that premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival.
Spencer made her stage debut in Los Angeles and originated the role of "LaSonia" (pronounced lasagna) in famed writer/director Del Shore's, The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife, starring opposite veteran actors Beth Grant, Dale Dickey and David Steen (2003). The play garnered Spencer and her fellow cast mates critical acclaim and a bevy of awards. Since then, Spencer has continued to see success as an actor in both film and television, working alongside Hollywood's elite. In February 2009, she was lauded by Los Angeles Times publication: The Envelope, for her brief but memorable performance in the Will Smith drama Seven Pounds.- Actress
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As a child, Geena dreamed of being an actress. While in high school, she felt left out and had low self-esteem because, at 6 feet, she was the tallest girl in school. After high school graduation, Geena entered New England College in New Hampshire and then transferred the next year to Boston University, where she majored in drama. In 1977, she left BU and moved to New York to start her career. Her career consisted of sales clerk and waitress. She worked at Ann Taylor, where she eventually rose to Saturday window mannequin while trying to get a job with a modeling agency. Eventually signed by the Zoli Agency, she wound up as a model in the Victoria Secret's Catalogue. Ever vigilant, Sydney Pollack was looking for new talent in the catalog when he spotted Geena and cast her in Tootsie (1982). With good reviews, Geena moved to Los Angeles where she was cast as Wendy in the short-lived but critically acclaimed television series Buffalo Bill (1983) with Dabney Coleman. A starter marriage to restaurant manager Richard Emmolo dissolved around this time. Her next appearance on television was in her own series Sara (1985), which was also good, but soon canceled. Geena then returned to the big screen in the below-average Transylvania 6-5000 (1985) followed by the successful Chevy Chase movie Fletch (1985). From there on, she was on a roll with second husband Jeff Goldblum in the horror remake The Fly (1986). More successful were Tim Burton's dark comedy Beetlejuice (1988) and The Accidental Tourist (1988). For the last film, she was the surprise winner of the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. More fun movies followed with the flying-saucer-in-the-pool Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) and everyone-loves-a-clown Quick Change (1990) with Bill Murray. The very successful Thelma & Louise (1991), directed by Ridley Scott, again garnered nominations for the Academy Award and Golden Globe. A League of Their Own (1992), with Tom Hanks and directed by Penny Marshall, was the turning point as her next film, Hero (1992), was only average. Then she married director Renny Harlin and they set up a production and development company called "The Forge". Their first film was Speechless (1994), which flopped at the box office. Undeterred, Renny decided to film the big-budget Cutthroat Island (1995), starring Geena as pirate leader Morgan, which also flopped. Geena has since starred in the thriller The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) and played Eleanor Little in Stuart Little (1999) and Stuart Little 2 (2002). She's also returned to TV, headlining The Geena Davis Show (2000) and Commander in Chief (2005). Both shows were canceled after one season, but she won a Golden Globe for the latter. In 2008, after being missed from the big screen for some years, Geena ventured to Sydney, Australia, playing the foul-mouthed mother of Harry Cook and Harrison Gilbertson to shoot the dark comedy Accidents Happen (2009).- Actress
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Mary Steenburgen is an Academy Award-winning American actress.
She was born in Newport, Arkansas, USA. Her mother, Nellie May (Wall) Steenburgen, was a school-board secretary, and her father, Maurice H. Steenburgen, was a freight-train conductor. Her surname comes from distant Dutch ancestry, and her roots also include English, Scottish, and Welsh.
Young Steenburgen was fond of arts and literature. Mary grew up tap-dancing her way through talent shows and school functions. She was active in her school drama class. After appearing in a number of high school plays, she enrolled at Hendrix College, a highly progressive Southern School located in Conway, Arkansas. Upon the recommendation of her drama professor, she left college in 1972 and moved to New York to study acting professionally. In the past several years, Mary Steenburgen has emerged as one of the most accomplished and sought-after screen actresses. Ever since Jack Nicholson discovered her and cast her as a sassy adventuress in his rollicking western, Goin' South (1978), her career has skyrocketed and she has won acclaim for exceptional performances in each of her diverse film roles. In Nicholas Meyer's Time After Time (1979), Steenburgen was afforded critical praise for her portrayal of a somewhat dippy but liberated young bank clerk in San Francisco who crosses paths, via time machine, with English author H.G. Wells (played by Malcolm McDowell, who later became her husband). In 1980 she shot to fame with her role as Lynda Dummar in Melvin and Howard (1980) for which she won Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Steenburgen again impressed audiences and critics alike with her stunning performance as the strong-willed turn-of-the-century mother in Ragtime (1981).
Steenburgen is a notable patron of arts. She is also an active supporter of humanitarian causes. She has two children from her previous marriage to actor Malcolm McDowell. Since 1995 she has been married to actor Ted Danson, and the couple is living in the Los Angeles area.- Actress
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Lea Katherine Thompson was born May 31, 1961 in Rochester, Minnesota. She is the youngest of five children. Her parents are Barbara and Cliff Thompson. Since all her siblings were much older than her, Lea says it seemed like she had more than two parents. The family lived in the Starlight motel, all the kids sharing a room. Things began to look up for the family when Lea's father got a job in Minneapolis, where the family moved.
Lea's parents divorced when she was six, and her mother decided to maintain the family. This wasn't the easiest job, considering her mother was alcohol-addicted at the time. When she found the strength to quit drinking, she took a job playing the piano and singing in a bar to support Lea and her siblings. When Lea was seven, her mother remarried. Ever since Lea was little, she loved to dance -- ballet to be exact. She would practice three to four hours every day. Her first role was as a mouse in "The Nutcracker". After Lea turned fourteen, she had performed in more than 45 ballets on stages, such as The Minnesota Dance Theatre, The Pennsylvania Ballet Company, and The Ballet Repertory. She won scholarships to The American Ballet Theatre and The San Francisco Ballet. At age nineteen, she auditioned for Mikhail Baryshnikov, who later told her that she was "a beautiful dancer... but too stocky." Lea knew her dreams had been crushed. At that point, she decided to turn to acting. She began working as a waitress, also making 22 Burger King commercials and a few Twix commercials. She was perfect for these parts simply because she was the average girl-down-the-street, from the Midwest. Everyone who knows her can't believe she was and still is so completely different...trying to be independent and fight against the system. In 1982, Lea made some type of a computer game or interactive movie known as "Murder, Anyone."
Her first role was in the movie, Jaws 3-D (1983), as a water ski bunny, although she couldn't swim or ski, which she still can't! There, she met Dennis Quaid, who became her fiancée and acting coach. Her next role was in All the Right Moves (1983), where she acted opposite Tom Cruise. Director Michael Chapman was so disappointed with her performance, that he almost fired her. Between 1983 and 1984, Lea appeared in other "teen" movies, such as Red Dawn (1984), The Wild Life (1984), and Going Undercover (aka Going Undercover (1985)), and believes it was lucky that, in these movies, they were able to use anyone who could walk and talk! Lea's biggest known accomplishment, and her big break, came from the first Back to the Future (1985). It was the biggest hit of 1985, and Lea was suddenly the most wanted actress. She could have her pick of any role she wanted to take on. She chose Howard the Duck (1986). Although it was a George Lucas production, the critics turned the movie, and Lea, down. Afterwards, director Howard Deutch offered Lea a part in his movie, Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), but she refused. After he urged her to do it, she reconsidered. She won the Young Artist Award for best young actress. During filming, Howard and Lea fell in love, and she called it off with Dennis. She then went on to film The Wizard of Loneliness (1988), which was her first movie as a woman, rather than a youngster. Lea went on to film Back to the Future Part II (1989) and an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1989). She then married Howard Deutch. She continued filming Back to the Future Part III (1990), Montana (1990), and Article 99 (1992). Lea then took a break to stay home with her first born, Madelyn Deutch.
She jumped back into acting in Dennis the Menace (1993), where she says she just played herself. Then it was on to The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), Stolen Babies (1993), The Little Rascals (1994), and The Substitute Wife (1994). In 1994, she had her second child, Zoey Deutch. Lea then went into filming The Unspoken Truth (1995). It was then that she was first given the script of a new NBC sitcom, Caroline in the City (1995). It was probably the best decision Lea ever made. She won a People's choice Award for best actress in a new sitcom. Unfortunately, with all of NBC's problems, Caroline in the City (1995) kept being moved to a worse and worse time slot, giving it horrible ratings. The show ended after only four seasons. Bad ideas from the creators (Julia, etc.) didn't help, either.
Lea quickly went onto The Right to Remain Silent (1996), The Unknown Cyclist (1998), and A Will of Their Own (1998). She also guest-starred in the Friends (1994) episode, The One with the Baby on the Bus (1995), as "Caroline Duffy," and on The Larry Sanders Show (1992). Lea also did some stage work, including starring as "Sally Bowles" in "Cabaret." The show toured and also appeared on Broadway. She then did "The Vagina Monologues" in L.A. She had a stint in a dramatic role as a Chief Deputy Assistant District Attorney, "Camille Paris," on For the People (2002).
Thompson has starred in more than 30 films, 25 television movies, 4 television series, more than 20 ballets, and starred on Broadway in "Cabaret." Lea can currently be seen on ABC Family's Peabody Award winning hit show "Switched at Birth," where she acts and directs. Lea's movie credits include: "All the Right Moves," "Red Dawn," "Some Kind of Wonderful," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Howard The Duck," (star and vocals) Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar," the 2014 Sundance favorite Ping Pong Summer (2014), Fliegen (2005) starring Nicolas Cage, and The Year of Spectacular Men (2017), a film written by her daughter Madelyn Deutch. Thompson partnered with international Mirrorball Trophy holder Artem Chigvintsev on the 19th season of Dancing with the Stars (2005), placing sixth.
Lea lives in Los Angeles with her husband of over thirty years, film/television director Howard Deutch, and their two talented daughters, Madelyn and Zoey Deutch, along with many dogs, fish, horses, chickens, a cat, tortoise, and parrot. She supports and often performs for breast cancer, mental health, and Alzheimer's charities. Lea is currently writing her first book of essays.- Actress
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- Script and Continuity Department
Catherine was born in London, but she moved to California with her Iranian mother at the age of two. Her mother still acts as her personal assistant. As a girl, she acted in various TV advertisements. She went to UCLA to study biology/ pre-medicine, but she dropped out to become a model in Japan. She moved back into acting with a Mexican commercial for American Express, and then she followed that up by being Isabella Rossellini's nude body double in Death Becomes Her (1992), when she also met her future husband, Adam Beason, who was the director's Robert Zemeckis's assistant. As of 2018, the two reside near Los Angeles with their daughter Gemma Beason and son Ronan Beason.- Actress
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Heather Langenkamp was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. She got her start in acting when she was cast as an extra in the Francis Ford Coppola films The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983), which were both filmed in Tulsa. Her scenes were deleted from the final cut of both films. While studying at Stanford University, she rose to international prominence when Wes Craven cast her as Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). After a string of television guest appearances, she returned as Nancy in the 1987 sequel A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). Subsequently, she became known for her role as the moralistic Marie Lubbock on the ABC television series Just the Ten of Us (1987), a spin-off of the popular ABC situation comedy Growing Pains (1985) (on which she guest-starred), from 1988 to 1990. In 1994, she portrayed fictionalized versions of herself in New Nightmare (1994) and the figure skater Nancy Kerrigan in Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story (1994). The following year, she had a supporting role as the reporter Christy Carruthers in the horror film The Demolitionist (1995). She served as executive producer and narrator for the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010), followed by roles in The Butterfly Room (2012), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and Truth or Dare (2017). She has since starred in a variety of independent films. She co-owns AFX Studio, a company responsible for the special effects for films such as Dawn of the Dead (2004) and The Cabin in the Woods (2011). She has been married to David LeRoy Anderson since 1990. They have two children. She was previously married to Alan Pasqua.- Actress
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Shohreh Aghdashloo was born Shohreh Vaziri-Tabar on May 11, 1952 in Tehran, Iran. In the 1970s at age 20, she achieved nationwide stardom in her homeland of Iran, starring in some prominent pictures such as The Report (1977) directed by the renowned Abbas Kiarostami, which won critics awards at the Moscow Film Festival. In 1978, she won wider acclaim and established herself as one of Iran's leading ladies with Desiderium (1978) directed by the late Ali Hatami. During the 1978 Islamic revolution, Aghdashloo left Iran for England, to complete her education. Her interest in politics and her concern for social injustice in the world would lead her to receive a Bachelor's degree in International Relations.
She continued to pursue her acting career, which eventually brought her to Los Angeles, California in 1987. She went on to marry actor/playwright Houshang Touzie, performing in a number of his plays, successfully taking them to national and international stages. However, this was not easy getting work in Hollywood as a Middle Eastern actress with an accent; she had roles in some decent, though not great, films, including Twenty Bucks (1993), Surviving Paradise (2000) and Maryam (2002). She received good reviews for her 12 episodes on the fourth season of the Fox television series 24 (2001) as Dina Araz, a terrorist undercover as a well-to-do housewife and mother in Los Angeles. She had to wait quite some time to receive her break in Hollywood.
And finally, years after having read the acclaimed novel "House of Sand and Fog", DreamWorks were in the process of bringing the story to the silver screen. After having cast Ben Kingsley (as Massoud Amir Behrani) and Jennifer Connelly in the lead roles, they were looking for a relatively unknown Iranian actress to play Kingsley's wife, Nadi. Shohreh Aghdashloo was duly cast. She stole the limelight and earned herself an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress amongst many other prestigious awards, including the Independent Spirit Sward as best supporting actress in a feature film, the New York and Los Angeles film critics award and others.- Actress
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Marisa Tomei was born on December 4, 1964, in Brooklyn, New York, to Patricia "Addie" (Bianchi), a teacher of English, and Gary Tomei, a lawyer, both of Italian descent. Marisa has a brother, actor Adam Tomei. As a child, Marisa's mother frequently corrected her speech as to eliminate her heavy Brooklyn accent. As a teen, Marisa attended Edward R. Murrow High School and graduated in the class of 1982. She was one year into her college education at Boston University when she dropped out for a co-starring role on the CBS daytime drama As the World Turns (1956). Her role on that show paved the way for her entrance into film: in 1984, she made her film debut with a bit part in The Flamingo Kid (1984). Three years later, Marisa became known for her role as Maggie Lawton, Lisa Bonet's college roommate, on the sitcom A Different World (1987).
Her real breakthrough came in 1992, when she co-starred as Joe Pesci's hilariously foul-mouthed, scene-stealing girlfriend in My Cousin Vinny (1992), a performance that won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Later that year, she turned up briefly as a snippy Mabel Normand in director Richard Attenborough's biopic Chaplin (1992), and was soon given her first starring role in Untamed Heart (1993). A subsequent starring role -- and attempted makeover into Audrey Hepburn -- in the romantic comedy Only You (1994) proved only moderately successful.
Marisa's other 1994 role as Michael Keaton's hugely pregnant wife in The Paper (1994) was well-received, although the film as a whole was not. Fortunately for Tomei, she was able to rebound the following year with a solid performance as a troubled single mother in Nick Cassavetes' Unhook the Stars (1996) which earned her a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She turned in a similarly strong work in Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), and in 1998 did some of her best work in years as the sexually liberated, unhinged cousin of Natasha Lyonne's Vivian Abramowitz in Tamara Jenkins' Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). Marisa co-starred with Mel Gibson in the hugely successful romantic comedy What Women Want (2000) and during the 2002 movie award season, she proved her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar win was no fluke when she received her second nomination in the same category for the critically acclaimed dark drama, In the Bedroom (2001). She also made a guest appearance on the animated TV phenomenon The Simpsons (1989) as Sara Sloane, a movie star who falls in love with Ned Flanders. In 2006, she went on to do 4 episodes for Rescue Me (2004). She played Angie, the ex-wife of Tommy Calvin (Denis Leary)'s brother Johnny (Dean Winters). At age 42, Marisa took on a provocative role in legendary filmmaker Sidney Lumet's melodramatic picture Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), in which she appeared nude in love scenes with costars Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Marisa then took on another provocative role as a stripper in the highly acclaimed film The Wrestler (2008) opposite Mickey Rourke. Her great performance earned her many awards from numerous film societies for Best Supporting Actress, a third Academy Award nomination, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. Many critics heralded this performance as a standout in her career.- Actress
- Producer
Annabella Sciorra was born on 29 March 1960 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Annabella is an actor and producer, known for The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and Jungle Fever (1991). Annabella was previously married to Joe Petruzzi.- Actress
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Kelly Ann McGillis was born in Newport Beach, California, to Virginia Joan (Snell), a homemaker, and Donald Manson McGillis, a general practitioner of medicine. She has English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry. McGillis dropped out of high school to pursue a career as an actress, and attended Juilliard in Manhattan and Pacific Conservatory of Performing Art in Santa Monica, CA.
She held a variety of jobs while pursuing her career, such as waitressing, and snagged a few stage roles before landing a supporting part in the Academy Award-nominated Reuben, Reuben (1983). This led to a lot of TV work and a lead role opposite Harrison Ford in the highly acclaimed thriller Witness (1985). This box office hit, directed by Peter Weir, got her noticed around Hollywood and producers took note of her. One of them was Jerry Bruckheimer, who cast her as Charlie Blackwood in the mega-hit Top Gun (1986) which became the highest-grossing film of the year and gave her some major name recognition.
Ironically, that breakthrough role didn't help her career in terms of high-profile work. She played prosecutor Kathryn Murphy in The Accused (1988) with Jodie Foster who won an Academy Award for her role, but unfortunately for McGillis she was overlooked for any major nomination. Never interested in being box-office gold, she remained loyal to the theater, even after being established as a major star during the mid to late 1980s, taking such various stage roles in such William Shakespeare plays as "The Merchant of Venice", "Don Juan", "Twelfth Night", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "Mourning Becomes Electra" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In 1994 she scored the title role in the Broadway production of "Hedda Gabler" but unfortunately it only played for 33 performances before closing.
She had two daughters in the early 1990s, and worked more sporadically on TV and film so she could spend time with her family and owned her business, a restaurant in Florida. She worked on Winter People (1989), Cat Chaser (1989), The Babe (1992), North (1994), At First Sight (1999) and The Monkey's Mask (2000) as well as a string of made-for-TV films.
She has completed a national stage tour of "The Graduate", playing the infamous Mrs. Robinson, and continues to act as she begins study on Addiction Studies and raising her children in Pennsylvania.- Actress
- Producer
Carrie-Anne Moss was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. At age 20, after studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she moved to Europe to pursue a career in modeling. While in Spain she was cast in the TV show Dark Justice which was produced in Barcelona for its first season and Los Angeles for its second. Once in LA, Carrie-Anne was cast in other series regular opportunities like Matrix (which coincidentally presaged the movie that would later make her famous), and then Aaron Spelling's Models Inc.
Carrie-Anne's work was gaining attention when the late great Mali Finn brought her in to audition for The Wachowski's, who offered her the opportunity to create the iconic cyber warrior "Trinity". Alongside her "One" Keanu Reeves, in stride with Laurence Fishburne and the multifaceted Hugo Weaving. Carrie-Anne Moss galvanized her place in cinematic history in one of the highest grossing sci-fi action franchises of all time.
Carrie-Anne began receiving a wide range of scripts but it was the complex screenplay Memento that stirred her creative senses and once meeting the then unknown writer/director Christopher Nolan, it was without hesitation that she accepted the role of "Natalie" in Nolan's directorial debut. Her remarkable performance won her the coveted Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female that year.
Prominent directors and producers continued to pursue her. She survived with Val Kilmer on the Red Planet for Warner Bros; sweetened Lasse Hallstrom's multi Oscar nominated Chocolat for Miramax and tracked Sir Ben Kingsley in Paramount's Suspect Zero. She mothered Shia LaBeouf in DreamWork's box-office hit Disturbia; and together with Samuel L. Jackson, led the intense interrogation of Michael Sheen in Sony's Unthinkable.
Carrie-Anne continued to collaborate on independent projects including The Chumscrubber with Ralph Fiennes and Glenn Close; the comedy noir Mini's First Time also starring Alec Baldwin and Luke Wilson; Snow Cake the touching drama with Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman; Fireflies in the Garden in the company of Ryan Reynolds, Julia Roberts and Willem Defoe; and the retro zombie rom-com Fido along with Billy Connelly and Dylan Baker.
Throughout her career, Carrie-Anne has joined compelling television projects such as Ryan Murphy's Pretty Handsome; CBS's Vegas for James Mangold and Marvel's Jessica Jones as "Jerry Hogarth" for show runner Melissa Rosenberg. She recently finished acting and also producing in her second season, the bi-lingual English/Norwegian detective crime series Wisting, as an FBI agent set in the Norwegian landscape.
Next up, Carrie-Anne returns once again to star as "Trinity" in the much anticipated fourth installment of Lana Wachowski's Matrix Resurrections opposite Keanu Reeves for Warner Bros, which launches globally December 22, 2021- Actress
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Parker Posey was born two months premature in Baltimore, Maryland, to Lynda (Patton) and Chris Posey. The family moved to Monroe, La. and then Laurel, Mississippi, where Chris became owner of Laurel's own Posey Chevrolet. Parker attended high school at R. H. Watkins High School in Laurel, and college at the prestigious SUNY Purchase. While at SUNY she roomed with Sherry Stringfield of TV's ER (1994).- Actor
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Bex Taylor-Klaus (they/them) is a very queer and very kind multi-hyphenate industry professional, absolutely oozing with humility. They've been on such smash hit projects as That Thing You Probably Didn't Watch and That Other Thing That Got Taken Off Streaming And Honestly Might Be A Fever Dream!
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Bex is genuinely a pillar in the recent queer history of the entertainment industry. their first professional role was as the iconic street kid Bullet in season 3 of AMC's "The Killing," which was highlighted as a stand-out role by the New York Times.
Bex's performances of note include voicing Pidge on Dreamwork's highly-acclaimed reboot of "Voltron: Legendary Defender" and Keo Venzee in "Star Wars: Squadron," as well as live-action roles like Sin on CW's "Arrow," Audrey on MTV's "Scream," and Deputy Bishop on Fox's "Deputy." In films, they've gained acclaim as Hannah in "Dumplin'" and Chris in "Blackbird.- Actress
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Katie Cassidy was born Katherine Evelyn Anita Cassidy on November 25, 1986, in Los Angeles, California. Her father, David Cassidy, was a pop star in the 1970s. Her famous relatives include uncles Shaun Cassidy, Patrick Cassidy and Ryan Cassidy, the sons by her grandfather Jack Cassidy's marriage to Shirley Jones; Katie's grandmother was Evelyn Ward. As a child, Katie took gymnastics, studied piano, guitar and singing, then took dancing and acting lessons and eventually became a cheerleader for the California Flyers. She attended Calabasas High School in her neighborhood. For years prior to graduation in 2005, Katie was modeling and studying acting in community theater. Katie had just been accepted to 'Tisch' at NYU when she was offered her first role as "Dee Dee", which was one month before graduating. Katie has not stopped working since. Katie's early exposure to show business, the cosmopolitan culture of Los Angeles, her family upbringing, and her comprehensive education altogether produced a remarkable result. She grew up as a multifaceted person showing her many talents in a variety of professions such as recording her father's 1970s hit "I Think I Love You" and singing in VH1's TV special Bubblegum Babylon (2002), writing her own songs, modeling for Abercrombie and Fitch and Guess?'s Rock and Republic clothing lines in 2004, and acting. She met her ex-boyfriend, Jesse McCartney, there and later appeared as his love interest in his video hit "She's No You". A story on Jesse and Katie appeared in the January 2006 issue of Teen People magazine. Jesse wrote the song "Bleeding Love" performed by Leona Lewis, about Cassidy and their relationship. At that time she was busy working on five feature film productions going on almost simultaneously. Katie made several appearances in TV series, such as 7th Heaven (1996) and Sex, Love & Secrets (2005), among others. She appeared as Samantha, the grown-up daughter of Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale in the comedy Click (2006). After the release of a teen horror film, When a Stranger Calls (2006),in which she co-starred as Tiffany, Cassidy went to Vancouver to work on her second horror film, Black Christmas (2006), in which she stars as a sorority girl. Katie recently beat out the likes of Jessica Simpson and Kristin Cavallari for the leading role opposite John Travolta as his daughter and the heir to the most powerful energy company in the world in Dallas, the big-screen remake of the cult TV series.In the scribbler she really got into character- Actress
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The iconoclastic gifts of the highly striking and ferociously talented actress Tilda Swinton have been appreciated by art house crowds and international audiences alike. After her stunning Oscar-winning turn as a high-powered corporate attorney in the George Clooney starring and critically-lauded legal thriller Michael Clayton (2007), however, her androgynous looks and often bizarre appeal have been embraced by more mainstream crowds as well.
She was born Katherine Mathilda Swinton into a patrician Scottish military family on November 5, 1960, in London, England. Her mother, Judith Balfour, Lady Swinton (née Killen), was Australian, and her father, Major-General Sir John Swinton, an army officer, was English-born. Her ancestry is Scottish, Northern Irish, and English, including a long tapestry of prominent Scottish ancestors. Educated at an English and a Scottish boarding school, Tilda subsequently studied Social and Political Science at Cambridge University and graduated in 1983 with a degree in English Literature.
During her tenure as a student, she performed countless stage productions and proceeded to work for a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company where she appeared in such productions as "Measure for Measure." The rebel insider her, however, was strong and she left the company after a year as her approach and interests began to shift dramatically. With a pungent taste for the unique and seldom tried, Tilda found some gender-bending stage roles come her way. She portrayed Mozart in Pushkin's "Mozart and Salieri", and as a working class woman impersonating her dead husband during World War II, in Manfred Karge's "Man to Man," a role she later committed to film (Man to Man (1992)).
In 1985, the tall, slender performer with alabaster skin and carrot-topped hair began a professional association with gay experimental director Derek Jarman. She continued to live and work with the groundbreaking writer/director/cinematographer for the next nine years, involving herself in seven of his often notorious films. This quirky, highly fascinating alliance would produce such stark and radical turns as the Berlin International Film Festival winners Caravaggio (1986), The Last of England (1987), The Garden (1990) and Edward II (1991) (playing Isabella, in which she won "Best Actress" at the Venice Film Festival) and Wittgenstein (1993), as well as the films Soursweet (1988) (a movie with no spoken dialogue) and the Stockholm Film Festival Award winner Blue (1993).
Jarman succumbed to complications from AIDS in 1994. His untimely demise left a devastating void in Tilda's life for quite some time. Her most notable performance of her Jarman period, however, came from a non-Jarman film. For the vivid title role in Orlando (1992), her nobleman character lives for 400 years while changing sex from man to woman. The film, which Swinton spent years helping writer/director Sally Potter develop and finance, continues to this day to have a worldwide devoted fan following.
Over the years, Tilda has preferred art to celebrity, opening herself to experimental projects with new and untried directors and mediums, delving into the worlds of installation art and cutting-edge fashion. Consistently off-centered roles in Female Perversions (1996), Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998), Teknolust (2002), Young Adam (2003), Broken Flowers (2005) and Béla Tarr's The Man from London (2007) have added to her mystique. Back in 1995, she delved into a performance art piece in the Serpentine Gallery, London, where she was put on display to the public for a week, asleep (or apparently so), in a glass case.
Following the birth of her twins in 1997, Tilda would leave lean for a time towards Hollywood mainstream filming. The thriller The Deep End (2001), earned her a number of critic's awards and her first Golden Globe nomination. Other visible U.S. pictures included The Beach (2000) with Leonardo DiCaprio, fantasy epic Constantine (2005) with Keanu Reeves, her Oscar-decorated performance in Michael Clayton (2007) and, of course, her iconic White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).
Into the millennium, Tilda continued to amaze starring in the crime drama Julia (2008) and in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). She learned Italian and Russian for Luca Guadagnino's I Am Love (2009), starred in the psychological thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer (2013), and earned fine notice in Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem (2013). She also starred in the dark romantic fantasy drama Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) directed by Jim Jarmusch, had a small role in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), starred in Judd Apatow's comedy Trainwreck (2015), and played a rock star in Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash (2015).
Showing no signs of slowing up, Tilda continues to make creative, visual impressions in such films as the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar! (2016) where she reunited with Clooney and had a dual role playing twin journalists, and as the wise Asian teacher of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in the Marvel Comics action film Doctor Strange (2016), while repeating the part of The Ancient One in Avengers: Endgame (2019). She gave another eccentric, unhinged performance in the action adventure message movie Okja (2017), played Betsy Trotwood in a contemporary telling of The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019) and teamed up again with writer/director Jim Jarmusch in the thoroughly offbeat fantasy horror comedy The Dead Don't Die (2019).- Actress
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Deborah Kara Unger was the first Canadian accepted into the prestigious Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art. She made her feature film debut in Blood Oath (1990), followed by roles in Christopher Crowe's Whispers in the Dark (1992), Till There Was You (1991), and Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994). She acted in the award-winning television drama Bangkok Hilton (1989) with Nicole Kidman and Denholm Elliott, as well as HBO's Hotel Room (1993), directed by James Signorelli, and Showtime's ensemble medical drama State of Emergency (1994).- Jayne Heitmeyer was born in Montréal, Québec, Canada. She is an actress, known for Maps to the Stars (2014), Snake Eyes (1998) and Transplant (2020).
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On February 13th, 1968, a girl of Chinese, English, and Hawaiian ancestry was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her father, Herbert, was a salesman and her mother, Juanita, worked many odd jobs to help support the family. She has one older brother, Glenn. She is a former Miss Teen USA, and modeled in Japan and Italy for several months before deciding to relocate to L.A. and try her hand at show business. She received her break on TV's Growing Pains (1985) in 1987 and never looked back.- Actress
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Michelle Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California to Dick and Donna Pfeiffer. She has an older brother and two younger sisters - Dedee Pfeiffer, and Lori Pfeiffer, who both dabbled in acting and modeling but decided against making it their lives' work. She graduated from Fountain Valley High School in 1976, and attended one year at the Golden West College, where she studied to become a court reporter. But it was while working as a supermarket checker at Vons, a large Southern California grocery chain, that she realized her true calling. She was married to actor/director Peter Horton ("Gary" of Thirtysomething (1987)) in 1981. They were later divorced, and she then had a three year relationship with actor Fisher Stevens. When that didn't work out, Pfeiffer decided she didn't want to wait any longer before having her own family, and in March of 1993, she adopted a baby girl, Claudia Rose. On November 13th of the same year, she married lawyer-turned-writer/producer David E. Kelley, creator of Picket Fences (1992), Chicago Hope (1994), The Practice (1997), and Boston Public (2000). On August 5, 1994 their son, John Henry was born.- Actress
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Bai Ling is recognized for unbridled freedom and creativity, Bai Ling has become undoubtedly one of the world's most diverse and captivating actresses! Born in the city of Cheng Du in southern China, Bai Ling began her career at age of 14. She enlisted In the Chinese People's Liberation Army, where she spent three years in a performance troupe entertaining soldiers stationed in Tibet. She first gained the attention of audiences and critics alike when she won the coveted lead role opposite Richard Gere in Jon Avnet's Red Corner (1997). She received numerous accolades including the prestigious Breakthrough Performance Award from the National Board of Review. She also garnered the Discovery Star awarded by the Hollywood Women's Press Club for their Golden Apple Awards. While developing her remarkable facility with the English language, she has worked with such prestigious filmmakers as Oliver Stone in Nixon (1995), George Lucas in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), Barry Sonnenfeld in Wild Wild West (1999), Spike Lee in She Hate Me (2004), Andy Tennant in Anna and the King (1999), Ang Lee in The Wedding Banquet (1993), Alex Proyas in The Crow (1994) and Luc Besson' in )Taxi 3 (2003)_, in which she spoke French. She also starred in Terrence Malick's Broadway production of "Sansho the Bailiff". She dazzled audiences with her portrayal of the sexy, mysterious Achara in the hit TV series Lost (2004), and intrigued viewers with her seductive yet exhilarating role in HBO's Entourage (2004).
Bai Ling was awarded the Asian Oscar for her brilliant performance in her first Hong Kong film Three... Extremes (2004). It also earned her an additional three major awards in the Far East. She received the Spirit Diversity Award by The Hollywood Motion Picture Association. Her film Southland Tales (2006), directed by Richard Kelly was in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
Bai starred in and executive-produced Shanghai Baby (2007). She has worked with Taylor Hackford in Love Ranch (2010), co-starring with Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci, and had a leading role in the Jason Statham action comedy Crank: High Voltage (2009) with costar with Jason Statham.- Actress
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Rosanna Arquette has acted extensively in film and television, and has come to be acknowledged as an actress of rare depth and scope.
Arquette was born in New York City, New York. Her parents, Lewis Arquette, an actor, and Brenda Denaut (née Nowak), an acting teacher and therapist, had 4 other children: Richmond Arquette, Patricia Arquette, Alexis Arquette, and David Arquette, all actors. Her paternal grandfather, Cliff Arquette, also was an entertainer. Rosanna's mother was from an Ashkenazi Jewish family (from Poland and Russia), while Rosanna's father had French-Canadian, Swiss-German, and English ancestry.
Growing up in a family of actors, she began working at a young age. Her first big break came as a teenager with a role in the Movie of the Week The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978), which starred Bette Davis. Several television roles followed, including an ABC Afterschool Specials (1972) and a part on the series James at 16 (1977) before her talents led to her film debut in Gorp (1980). Since then she has acted in a steady stream of films, including John Sayles' Baby It's You (1983), Fathers & Sons (1992) with Jeff Goldblum, Silverado (1985) (which also featured Goldblum), The Linguini Incident (1991), Martin Scorsese's segment of New York Stories (1989) with Nick Nolte, and many others. She feels particularly proud of her offbeat roles in such independent films as After Hours (1985), Nobody's Fool (1986), and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), for which she won the British Academy Award. Ms. Arquette was nominated for an Emmy for her work in the controversial The Executioner's Song (1982). She continues her work on television as well as the big screen.- Actress
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Linda Hunt is a veteran character actress who had only just begun acting in motion pictures when director Peter Weir required her peculiarities to animate one of cinema's most esoteric characters, Billy Kwan, the intellectual and virtuous Chinese-Australian dwarf and photographer, in the Australian romantic drama, The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). Hunt's work in the film earned an Oscar, among many critic awards, all for Best Supporting Actress.- Actress
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Caitlin Marie Lotz (born December 30, 1986) is an American actress, dancer, and singer. She is known for her roles as Stephanie Horton in Mad Men (2007), Officer Kirsten Landry in the MTV mockumentary series Death Valley (2011), as Annie in The Pact (2012), and as Sara Lance/White Canary in The CW's Arrowverse television series, where she has appeared in Arrow (2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (2016), The Flash (2014), and Supergirl (2015). She is also a co-founder of SheThority, a women empowerment organization.
Lotz started her career as a dancer, touring with Avril Lavigne and Lady Gaga, and starring in music videos including Lady Gaga: Paparazzi (2009) and Lady Gaga: LoveGame (2009), David Guetta Feat. Estelle: One Love (2009), Selena Gomez: Tell Me Something I Don't Know (2008), Faith Evans' "Mesmerized", T-Pain's "Freeze", JoJo: Baby It's You (2004), Cascada: Evacuate the Dancefloor (2009), Kaci Brown's "Instigator (album)", and Leehom Wang's "Gai Shi Ying Xiong". Lotz appeared on Dancing with the Stars (2005) season 8, as Lady Gaga's back-up dancer for the song "LoveGame". Her Avril Lavigne tour performance was released on the video Avril Lavigne: The Best Damn Tour - Live in Toronto (2008).
Lotz appeared in adverts for Jack in the Box, Reebok, and T-Mobile, danced in the web series The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, toured with the hip hop theatre production Groovaloo, and stunt-doubled in films including Step Up 3D.
In 2005, Lotz joined the girl group Soccx. In 2006, the group released their debut single "From Dusk Till Dawn (Get the Party Started)", which they followed up in 2007 with the single "Scream Out Loud", both of which reached the top 10 in Germany. Their debut album, Hold On, was also released in 2007, and their third single, "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", was released in 2008.
Lotz has model-led for Men's Health and Esquire, the latter in conjunction with the website Me in My Place.
Lotz did her acting training at Sanford Meisner for two years. Lotz began her acting career in 2006 with a small role in the cheer-leading film Bring It on: All or Nothing (2006). She followed that up in 2010 with a part in the third episode of Law & Order: LA (2010) and a recurring role in the fourth season of the AMC drama Mad Men (2007) as Stephanie, Anna Draper's niece. In 2011, Lotz starred as Officer Kirsten Landry, one of the main characters in the MTV horror, black comedy mockumentary series Death Valley (2011). Lotz performs all her own stunts on the show.
In 2012, Lotz had roles in Live at the Foxes Den (2013), Battle of the Year (2013) alongside Josh Holloway and alongside Casper Van Dien and Agnes Bruckner in the supernatural thriller The Pact (2012), which debuted at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and has been picked up for distribution. Lotz also appears starting in season 2 of Arrow (2012) as Sara Lance, a character believed dead who returns as a costumed vigilante known as The Canary.
She stars as Sara Lance/White Canary in DC's Legends of Tomorrow (2016), an Arrow spin-off. She had the lead role in the science fiction film The Machine (2013), which had its UK release on March 21, 2014 and had its US release on April 25, 2014. In May 2014, she reprized her role as Stephanie in the seventh season of Mad Men. She also played Dr. Emily McTier in the TV film 400 Days (2015), along with co-star on Legends, Brandon Routh in 2016.
Lotz is a martial artist, with some training in taekwondo, wushu, Krav Maga, kali martial arts and muay Thai. She is also a practitioner of parkour and tricking. Lotz has trained with Steve Terada and Wayne Dalglish.I thought she did a great job transforming herself in the machine- Actress
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Julianne Moore was born Julie Anne Smith in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on December 3, 1960, the daughter of Anne (Love), a social worker, and Peter Moore Smith, a paratrooper, colonel, and later military judge. Her mother moved to the U.S. in 1951, from Greenock, Scotland. Her father, from Burlington, New Jersey, has German, Irish, Welsh, German-Jewish, and English ancestry.
Moore spent the early years of her life in over two dozen locations around the world with her parents, during her father's military career. She finally found her place at Boston University, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) degree in acting from the School of the Performing Arts. After graduation (in 1983), She took the stage name "Julianne Moore" because there was another actress named "Julie Anne Smith". Julianne moved to New York and worked extensively in theater, including appearances off-Broadway in two Caryl Churchill plays, Serious Money and Ice Cream With Hot Fudge and as Ophelia in Hamlet at The Guthrie Theatre. But despite her formal training, Julianne fell into the attractive actress' trap of the mid-1980's: TV soaps and miniseries. She appeared briefly in the daytime serial The Edge of Night (1956) and from 1985 to 1988 she played two half-sisters Frannie and Sabrina on the soap As the World Turns (1956). This performance later led to an Outstanding Ingénue Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. Her subsequent appearances were in mostly forgettable TV-movies, such as Money, Power, Murder. (1989), The Last to Go (1991) and Cast a Deadly Spell (1991).
She made her entrance into the big screen with 1990's Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), where she played the victim of a mummy. Two years later, Julianne appeared in feature films with supporting parts in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and the comedy The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992). She kept winning better and more powerful roles as time went on, including a small but memorable role as a doctor who spots Kimble Harrison Ford and attempts to thwart his escape in The Fugitive (1993). (A role that made such an impression on Steven Spielberg that he cast her in the Jurassic Park (1993) sequel without an audition in 1997). In one of Moore's most distinguished performances, she recapitulated her "beguiling Yelena" from Andre Gregory's workshop version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in Louis Malle's critically acclaimed Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Director Todd Haynes gave Julianne her first opportunity to take on a lead role in Safe (1995). Her portrayal of Carol White, an affluent L.A. housewife who develops an inexplicable allergic reaction to her environment, won critical praise as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
Later that year she found her way into romantic comedy, co-starring as Hugh Grant's pregnant girlfriend in Nine Months (1995). Following films included Assassins (1995), where she played an electronics security expert targeted for death (next to Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas) and Surviving Picasso (1996), where she played Dora Maar, one of the numerous lovers of Picasso (portrayed by her hero, Anthony Hopkins). A year later, after co-starring in Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), opposite Jeff Goldblum, a young and unknown director, Paul Thomas Anderson asked Julianne to appear in his movie, Boogie Nights (1997). Despite her misgivings, she finally was won over by the script and her decision to play the role of Amber Waves, a loving porn star who acts as a mother figure to a ragtag crew, proved to be a wise one, since she received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Julianne started 1998 by playing an erotic artist in The Big Lebowski (1998), continued with a small role in the social comedy Chicago Cab (1997) and ended with a subtle performance in Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (1960). 1999 had Moore as busy as an actress can be.
As the century closed, Julianne starred in a number of high-profile projects, beginning with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune (1999) , in which she was cast as the mentally challenged but adorable sister of a decidedly unhinged Glenn Close. A portrayal of the scheming Mrs. Cheveley followed in Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband (1999) with a number of critics asserting that Moore was the best part of the movie. She then enjoyed another collaboration with director Anderson in Magnolia (1999) and continued with an outstanding performance in The End of the Affair (1999), for which she garnered another Oscar nomination. She ended 1999 with another great performance, that of a grieving mother in A Map of the World (1999), opposite Sigourney Weaver.- Actress
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Sarah Paulson was born on December 17, 1974 in Tampa, Florida, to Catharine Gordon (Dolcater) and Douglas Lyle Paulson II. She spent most of her early years in New York and Maine, before settling in Manhattan to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the High School for Performing Arts. Although she made her Broadway debut in "The Sisters Rosensweig" and performed in the off-Broadway "Talking Pictures", she debuted on the small screen in late 1994 in a guest shot on NBC's Law & Order (1990), then, in the following spring, landed her first TV-movie role in CBS' Friends at Last (1995) and finally became a TV series regular by fall 1995.
Best known for her amazing performance in CBS' supernatural drama American Gothic (1995) as the benevolent spiritual guide to her young brother, she was also a regular on the WB series Jack & Jill (1999) as "Elisa Cronkite", the former girlfriend of David "Jill" Jillefsky (Ivan Sergei) as well as the main character in the TV series Leap of Faith (2002), "Faith Wardwell", and as "Audrey" in the TV movie Metropolis (2000). She was also part of the cast of Shaughnessy (1996), The Long Way Home (1998) (as "Leanne Bossert") and Path to War (2002) as Luci Baines Johnson, as well as making notable appearances in Touched by an Angel (1994) playing "Zoe" in Manhunt (2001), 20 October 2001, and Cracker: Mind Over Murder (1997) playing "Nina" in True Romance: Part 1 (1997), 18 September 1997.
Sarah has now played in movies with such stars as Mel Gibson in the romantic comedy What Women Want (2000) (as "Annie", Gibson's secretary), Diane Keaton in the romantic drama The Other Sister (1999) (as "Heather Tate", Keaton's lesbian eldest daughter), Jamie Foxx in Held Up (1999) (as "Mary", a developmentally disabled young woman with an unfaithful boyfriend) and David Hyde Pierce in the romantic comedy Down with Love (2003) (as "Vicky Hiller", Pierce's crush). She also had two major roles in the comedy Bug (2002) and the drama, Levitation (1997), where she starred as a pregnant teenager who searches for her biological mother, with the help of a guardian angel.- Actress
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Cheryl Ruth Hines was born on September 21, 1965 in Miami Beach, Florida, to Rosemary (Graham) and James Hines, and grew up in Tallahassee, Florida. She went to West Virginia University, Florida State University and graduated from the University of Central Florida. She studied theater and television production, but it was not until she moved to Los Angeles and studied at the Groundlings Theater that she felt she had really learned anything about comedy. Her first teacher there was Lisa Kudrow. She learned to improvise and write comedy sketches. This experience helped her prepare for the role of Larry David's wife on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000). The dialogue on the situation comedy is improvised, so she feels right at home. She still performs at the Groundlings Theater when she has a chance.- Actress
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Kelly Preston was born on October 13, 1962 in Honolulu, Hawaii. A talented and captivating performer, she first garnered international attention with her role as "Marnie Mason" in Ivan Reitman's Twins (1988), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. With her diverse character portrayals in films, such as director Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire (1996); Citizen Ruth (1996) for Alexander Payne; and For Love of the Game (1999), directed by Sam Raimi, she continued to capture audience attention.
In the early part of her career, Kelly worked with notable director John Frankenheimer in the Elmore Leonard film, 52 Pick-Up (1986), alongside Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret. Her career saw her cast her beside some of Hollywood's most notable names, including Kevin Spacey in Casino Jack (2010); Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney, and Harvey Keitel in Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996); Kevin Bacon in Death Sentence (2007); Meg Ryan and Matthew Broderick in Addicted to Love (1997); Debra Winger, Zooey Deschanel, and Hank Azaria in Eulogy (2004); Mike Myers in The Cat in the Hat (2003); and Rod Steiger and Julie Harris in the Academy Award-nominated short, Little Surprises (1996).
Kelly was actively involved in education, drug reform and many charitable organizations. She was acknowledged with numerous awards as a result of her work. She married John Travolta on September 12, 1991, and they had three children.
Kelly died on July 12, 2020, in Ocala, Florida, after a two-year battle with breast cancer. She was 57.- Actress
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Daryl Christine Hannah was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of Susan Jeanne (Metzger), a schoolteacher and later a producer, and Donald Christian Hannah, who owned a tugboat/barge company. Her stepfather was music journalist/promoter Jerrold Wexler. Her siblings are Page Hannah, Don Hannah and Tanya Wexler. She has Scottish, Norwegian, Danish, Irish, English, and German ancestry.
Daryl graduated from the University of Southern California School of Theatre. She practiced ballet with Maria Tallchief and studied drama at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. In her twenties, she played keyboard and sang backup for Jackson Browne. Hannah, a tall (5' 10") blond beauty, with haunting blue-green eyes, was a natural for show biz.
She started with small roles, such as a student in The Fury (1978) and as Kim Basinger's kid sister in Hard Country (1981). Daryl's breakout role was as the acrobatic, beautiful replicant punk android Pris in Blade Runner (1982); Pris was the vixen who wanted to live beyond her allotted years and risked the wrath of the title character. Showing her versatility, from there she portrayed a mermaid, Madison, who falls in love with Tom Hanks's character in Ron Howard's zany comedy Splash (1983), and a Cro-Magnon in The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986). Hannah played Roxanne in the eponymous Steve Martins contemporary take on the Cyrano de Bergerac story, and co-starred as Elle Driver in Quintin Tarantino's box office hit Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004).
Hannah has been a consistent, strong supporter of independent cinema, both acting in and producing many films, starring in such indie films as John Sayles's Casa de los babys (2003) as well as his political satire Silver City (2004). She worked on several films with the revered Robert Altman, including The Gingerbread Man (1998), as well as several films with the Polish Brothers including Northfork (2003) and Jackpot (2001). Daryl starred in the experimental improvised Michael Radford film Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000) and made As a filmmaker, Hannah wrote, directed, and produced an award winning short film, entitled The Last Supper (1995). Hannah also directed, produced and shot the documentary Strip Notes (2002) which was inspired while researching her role for Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000) that was shown on HBO and UK's Channel 4.
Daryl is in the process of shooting a documentary on Human Trafficking and has traveled undercover to South East Asia to document this atrocity and has become and advocates raising awareness and ending slavery. She has made over 40 video blogs for various websites including her popular dhlovelife.com. She designed dhlovelife.com (online since 2005) her website dedicated to sharing solutions on how to live more harmoniously with the planet and all other living things. Daryl has been passionate, committed and effective advocate for a more ethical relationship with each other and all life on the Planet. She has produced, hosted and shot numerous environmental awareness/ health documentaries, TV appearances and is a frequent speaker on both the conservative and progressive news.
Hannah has been a greening consultant for events such as the Virgin Music Festival, attended by over 150,000 people. Her many speaking engagements include keynote speeches at the UN Climate Change Summit, UN Global Business Conference on the environment, Natural and Organic Products Expo, LOHAS and numerous national and international universities, conferences and events. She has written articles on self sufficiency and sustainability for many magazines and has done a plethora of interviews on the topic in thousands of publications. The site features weekly five-minute inspirational video blogs which Daryl produces and films. There are daily news updates, alerts, community and access to goods and services. She is a member of the World Future Council, sits on the boards of the Sylvia Earle Alliance, Mission Blue, Eco America, Environmental Media Association (EMA), The Somaly Mam Foundation, and the Action Sports Environmental Coalition, She is the founder of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance (SBA).- Actress
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Born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, the daughter of two college professors, Lauren Michael Holly grew up in the upstate New York town of Geneva. Her childhood was split between experiences that contrasted. She was privy to the shelter of growing up in a rural town and also exposed due to the erudite sophistication of her parents' academic careers. She spent time traveling in Europe and lived for a year in London, where she studied languages and flute at the famed Sarah Siddons School. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County, New York, Holly credits her love of acting to her great-grandmother who bred a family tradition of "treading the boards" on the musical theatre stages of Liverpool and London.
Holly's breakthrough motion picture performance came in the New Line Cinema's box-office smash, Dumb and Dumber (1994), with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. Lauren captured the hearts of audiences, as "Mary Swanson", the woman who drove Jim Carrey to follow her across the country to pledge his love. Next, she received glowing reviews for her performance in the Edward Burns drama, No Looking Back (1998), as a woman whose life in a small seaside community is turned upside down by the reappearance of her ex-boyfriend. Other film credits include Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday", Sydney Pollack's "Sabrina", the action-drama "Turbulence", the Miramax ensemble "Beautiful Girls", "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story", "A Smile Like Yours", "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane", "Down Periscope", "Entropy" and "The Last Producer". On television, Holly recently starred in two films for Hallmark. She also boasts three seasons as Director Jenny Shepard in NCIS, opposite Mark Harmon. Holly was seen in the TNT movie "King of Texas", an adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear", playing opposite Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden and renowned actor Patrick Stewart, and in the NBC miniseries "Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot". She also starred on David E. Kelley's drama, "Chicago Hope", marking her second project with Kelley, following their successful collaboration on the critically acclaimed, Emmy Award-winning series, "Picket Fences".
Holly has worked on numerous Independent films, including the political thriller "Fatwa", in which she not only acted but also served as a producer, the Peter Schwaba penned and directed comedy "Godfather of Green Bay", "The Chumscrubber", "Pleasure Drivers", a Lifetime movie "Caught in the Act" (which she also produced), and "Chasing 3000". Most recently, she starred in "You're So Cupid". Additional projects contributing to the broad and diverse body of motion picture work Lauren has compiled include the drama "Colored Eggs" with Academy Award winner Faye Dunaway, the comedy "Raising Flagg" playing opposite Academy Award winner Alan Arkin, the Darrell Roodt directed HBO thriller, "Pavement" (co-starring Robert Patrick), and "What Women Want" (starring Academy Award winners Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt). She had a prime role in Disney's Academy Award-winning animated motion picture "Spirited Away" as the voice of Chihiro's Mother. Thrice divorced, as of 2014, Holly makes her home in Toronto, Canada, with her sons: Alexander, George, and Henry.- Actress
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Vera Farmiga is an American actress who has received an Academy Award nomination for her role in Up in the Air (2009) and Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her roles in Bates Motel (2013) and When They See Us (2019).
She was born Vera Ann Farmiga, the second of seven children, on August 6, 1973, in Clifton, New Jersey, USA, to Ukrainian parents. She did not speak English until the age of six, and was raised in the Ukrainian Catholic home of her mother, Luba (Spas), a schoolteacher, and her father, Michael Farmiga, a computer systems analyst. Her younger sister is actress Taissa Farmiga, who is 21 years her junior. Young Vera was a shy, nearsighted girl, who played piano and folk danced with a Ukrainian touring company in her teens.
In 1991, she graduated from Hunterdon Central Regional High School. Farmiga initially dreamed of becoming an optometrist, but she later changed her mind and studied acting at Syracuse University's School of Performing Arts, graduating in 1995. The following year, she began her professional acting career, making her Broadway debut as an understudy in the play "Taking Sides". Her stage credits included performances in "The Tempest", "Good", "The Seagull", and in a well-reviewed off-Broadway production of "Second-Hand Smoke" (1997). That same year, she made her television debut as the female lead, opposite a then-unknown Heath Ledger, in Fox's adventure series Roar (1997).
In 1998, Farmiga made her big screen debut in the drama Return to Paradise (1998), then played the daughters of Christopher Walken in The Opportunists (1999) and Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (2000). She starred as a working-class mother struggling to keep her life and marriage together while hiding her drug addiction in Down to the Bone (2004), for which she was awarded Best Actress from the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Farmiga's acting talent shone in a range of characters, from her role as a senator's daughter in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), the wife of a mobster in Running Scared (2006), a humorous prostitute in Breaking and Entering (2006), and a police psychiatrist in The Departed (2006).
In 2010, Farmiga received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in Up in the Air (2009). In 2011, she made her directorial debut with the drama Higher Ground (2011), in which she also appeared in the leading role. Although the film had a limited release, Farmiga's direction and performance received attention at several festivals. In 2013, she began starring in the drama thriller series Bates Motel (2013), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in the first season. In 2019, she received a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination, this time in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie category, for her role in the drama miniseries When They See Us (2019).
Farmiga was formerly married to actor Sebastian Roché, whom she met during production of Roar (1997). The two eloped to the Bahamas after the series ended in 1997. They separated and subsequently divorced in 2004. On September 13, 2008, she married musician Renn Hawkey, with whom she has two children, son Fynn McDonnell (b. 2009) and daughter Gytta Lubov Hawkey (b. 2010). Farmiga lives with her family in Hudson Valley, New York. Her other activities, outside her acting profession, include reading, playing piano, boxing, jujitsu, and spending time with her pet angora goats.- Actress
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Award-winning stage actress Frances Conroy was introduced and encouraged by her parents to explore the elements of theater. Born Frances Hardman Conroy in Monroe, Georgia, she attended high school in Long Island and experienced classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse as a teenager. The pale, blue-eyed redhead also studied drama at Dickinson College and the Juilliard School (BFA) where she was taught, at the latter college, by theater greats John Houseman and Marian Seldes.
Following potent dramatic roles in such classical productions as "Mother Courage...and Her Children," "King Lear," "All's Well That Ends Well," "Measure for Measure" and "Othello" (as Desdemona) in the late 70s, Frances made her Broadway debut with "The Lady from Dubuque" in 1980. She went on to earn a well-respected name for herself under the Broadway and off-Broadway lights throughout the 1980s in such esteemed plays as "Our Town" (as Mrs. Gibbs), "The Little Foxes (as Birdie) and "In the Summer House." She also appeared with Ms. Seldes in the well-received plays "Ring 'Round the Moon" and "A Bright Room Called Day."
A performer with the The Acting Company, Frances won a Drama Desk Award for "The Secret Rapture" and an Obie for "The Last Yankee." In 2000 she received the Outer Critics Circle Award and a Tony nomination for "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan." Her other Broadway credits include "Ring Round the Moon", "The Little Foxes", "The Rehearsal" (Drama Desk Nominee), "Broken Glass", "In the Summer House" (Drama Desk Nominee) and "The Secret Rapture" (Drama Desk Nominee). Conroy's numerous Off- Broadway plays include "The Dinner Party", "The Skin of Our Teeth", "The Last Yankee" and "Othello" (Drama Desk Nominee).
An actress of subtle power, great depth and astonishing versatility, she has both an aloof serenity and faintly sad/sensitive ambiance that makes her all the more mysterious and intriguing. She came out to California in 1985 at the invitation of director Houseman and appeared in more theater plays, including "Richard III," at San Diego's Globe Theater. She also earned a sprinkling of generally overlooked film and TV parts, including small parts in Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979) (debut), Another Woman (1988) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Showing a distinct flair for the offbeat and neurotic, nothing really pushed the envelope for her on screen quite like her series' turn as the dowdy, emotionally frail undertaker's widow Ruth Fisher in the cult hit TV series Six Feet Under (2001). During the five-season run she won both a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild awards and was nominated four times for an Emmy.
Film roles have been growing more abundant over the years, offering a number of fascinating featured roles, often as eccentric, often disturbing mothers and matrons. Such movies include Billy Bathgate (1991), Scent of a Woman (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), The Crucible (1996), Maid in Manhattan (2002), Die, Mommie, Die! (2003), Catwoman (2004), The Aviator (2004) (as Kate Hepburn's mother), Shopgirl (2005), The Wicker Man (2006), Humboldt County (2008), The Smell of Success (2009), Love Happens (2009), 6 Souls (2010), Waking Madison (2010), Chasing Ghosts (2014), Making the Rules (2014), Welcome to Happiness (2015), rare leading roles in No Pay, Nudity (2016) and Mountain Rest (2018), and as psychotic Joaquin Phoenix's needy mother in the Oscar-winning psychological drama Joker (2019).
Frances has also appeared to fine advantage in several other TV series of late, most notably American Horror Story (2011) in which she earned her fifth and sixth Emmy nomination. She also had stand-out roles in How I Met Your Mother (2005), Casual (2015), Arrested Development (2003) and Dead to Me (2019), in addition to episodic guest spots on "ER," "Desperate Housewives," "Nip/Tuck," "Grey's Anatomy," "Young Sheldon" and "Castle Rock."
In 1992, she married actor/husband Jan Munroe, an L.A. performance artist. After a few Broadway roles with "The Little Foxes" (as Birdie), "Ring Round the Moon" and "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan," Frances returned to the theatre after a six-year absence, in the 2006 production of "Pyrenees" by David Greig at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Demi Moore was born 1962 in Roswell, New Mexico. Her father Charles Harmon left her mother Virginia Guynes (née King) before Demi was born. Her stepfather Danny Guynes didn't add much stability to her life either. He frequently changed jobs and made the family move a total of 40 times. The parents kept on drinking, arguing and beating, until Guynes finally committed suicide. Demi quit school at the age of 16 to work as a pin-up girl. At 18 she married rock musician Freddy Moore; the marriage lasted four years. At 19 she became a regular on the soap opera General Hospital (1963). From the first salaries she started partying and sniffing cocaine. That lasted more than 3 years, until director Joel Schumacher threatened to fire her from the set of St. Elmo's Fire (1985) when she turned up high. She got a withdrawal treatment and returned clean after a week, and stayed clean. With determination and a skill for publicity stunts, like the nude appearance on cover of Vanity Fair while pregnant, she made her way to fame. Since the huge commercial success of Ghost (1990) and the controversial pictures Indecent Proposal (1993) and Disclosure (1994) she's one of Hollywood's most sought-after and most expensive actresses.- Actress
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Ming-Na ("enlightenment") was born on the island of Macau, forty miles from Hong Kong. Her mother, Lin Chan Wen, divorced her father when Ming-Na was only a toddler. She has an older brother named Jonathan. After the divorce, they moved to Hong Kong where her mother became a nurse. There her mother met Soo Lim Yee, a U.S. businessman. They soon married, and at four years, Ming-Na moved with her family to Queens, New York. Five years later, they transferred to Yee's hometown of Pittsburgh where his family runs the Chinatown Inn restaurant. Jonathan and half-brother, Leong, now manage this restaurant. Struggling to fit in at school, she changed her name to Maggie & Doris. She found a love for acting while appearing in a third grade Easter play, where she played a klutzy bunny. Her mother was not excited about her desire to pursue acting, She preferred that she go into medicine. Nonetheless, Ming-Na graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in theatre. She got her first acting job in 1988 on the soap As the World Turns (1956). Her big break came when she was cast in The Joy Luck Club (1993). When she needed a ride to the premiere of the film, her acting instructor sent one of his students, Eric Michael Zee. The two started dating in 1994 after Ming-Na moved permanently to Los Angeles and married in 1995, dropping her last name, Wen, at that time. She says she is now like Ann-Margret. Zee is a screenwriter and, with Ming-Na, manages At Last, a boy band.- Actress
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Born in San Diego, California, Betsy Russell is best known for her starring role as "Jill Tuck," the ex-wife of the Jigsaw Killer in the "Saw" film series. Russell was born into a family of educators--her father, iconic economist Richard Russell, wrote a news letter about the stock market for over 50 years called "Dow Theory Letters," and her grandfather, Max Lerner, was an author and syndicated columnist, said to be one of the great minds of our time. Russell seemed to be destined for greatness and decided to set the bar high for herself when making career moves and setting goals. At 16 years of age she landed her first real gig in the business, a Pepsi commercial in her hometown of San Diego, California. This sparked a fire within her, and she immediately made the move to Los Angeles to pursue acting full time.
Russell landed her first TV role on the series The Powers of Matthew Star (1982) with one line. After that TV roles began to pour in, until she landed an audition for a film that would change her career: the cult classic Private School (1983). She booked the role on the spot, being cast as "Jordon Leigh-Jensen," playing opposite her idol Phoebe Cates. The film launched Russell into Hollywood stardom, and she quickly became known as the "it-girl". Her scene riding a horse topless in slow motion made her an '80s icon. She continued to work steadily in film, starring in such films as Tomboy (1985), Avenging Angel (1985) and Cheerleader Camp (1988), and did guest-starring roles in such top-rated television series as The A-Team (1983), T.J. Hooker (1982) and Family Ties (1982). At the height of her career she met actor and tennis star Vincent Van Patten at The Playboy Mansion, where she visited frequently as her grandfather was a close friend of Hugh Hefner. Van Patten and Russell married in 1989 and had two beautiful boys. She decided to take a hiatus from acting, to focus on her family and raising her children.
Van Patten and Russell divorced in 2001, and she decided to move to Malibu, California, to continue raising her family. Soon after her divorce she received a call from "Saw" producer Mark Burg about an upcoming role in the series. Russell jumped at the opportunity to work in one of the biggest horror franchises in the history of film, and returned to the screen starring as "Jill Tuck" in Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures' Saw III (2006), Saw IV (2007), Saw V (2008), Saw VI (2009) and Saw 3D (2010).
Russell is an avid writer, has a huge passion for various charities, she holds a real-estate license and is a certified hypnotist. While she continues to love acting, she considers "Spiritual Psychology" and life coaching her other passion. She completed a three-year Masters program at The University of Santa Monica in this field, with an emphasis on consciousness health and healing, and hopes to help others with healing their issues and learning communication skills and has begun teaching workshops to actors on this subject.- Actress
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Lola Glaudini is an American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Elle Greenaway on CBS's Criminal Minds and for her role as Deborah Ciccerone-Waldrup on HBO's The Sopranos. Glaudini was born in Manhattan, New York. Her father, Robert Glaudini, is a playwright of Italian descent, and in whose play The Poison Tree she appeared at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Elisabeth Rohm will next be seen in the Roger Ailes biopic FAIR AND BALANCED for Lionsgate and director Jay Roach, portraying Fox News host Martha MacCallum, as well as Ted Melfi's THE STARLING opposite Melissa McCarthy.
Elisabeth recently wrapped production on the Lifetime feature FAMILY PICTURES opposite Justina Machado and previously co-starred in David O. Russell's JOY opposite Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro. This was her second collaboration with David following the huge success of AMERICAN HUSTLE in which she had a pivotal role opposite Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Amy Adams (the film won numerous accolades for its ensemble cast including the coveted SAG Award and both films were nominated for Oscars.)
Elisabeth also had a key role in TRIBES OF PALOS VERDES opposite Jennifer Garner for IFC Films and Relativity Media. Other notable film credits include TRAFFICKED with Ashley Judd and GOING UNDER opposite Bruce Willis and Jason Momoa.
Elisabeth also has a rich body of work in the television space notably starring as "Serena Southerlyn" on LAW & ORDER for five seasons and "Kate Lockley" on The WB series ANGEL. More recently, Elisabeth co-starred with Dylan McDermott and Maggie Q on STALKER for CBS and starred opposite Eric Dance on THE LAST SHIP for TNT and Michael Bay. She also had memorable arcs on Will Arnett's Netflix series FLAKED and The CW hit show JANE THE VIRGIN.- Born in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and raised in Portland, Brenda Bakke moved to Los Angeles to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She began to work in the mid-1980s on episodes of television series and playing minor characters in low budget comedies. She appeared in the Charlie Sheen film Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993).
During the 1990s, she appeared in such mainstream Hollywood films as Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) and L.A. Confidential (1997). The latter received nine Academy Award nominations, winning two Oscars. She landed a role on American Gothic (1995). In the 2000s, she appeared in such films as The Quickie (2001) and Moving August (2002). She had guest roles on episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), NYPD Blue (1993), The Mentalist (2008), and Supernatural (2005). In 2015, she began appearing in the recurring role of Virginia on If Loving You Is Wrong (2014). In 2016-17, she appeared in guest star roles on Heartbeat (2016), Grey's Anatomy (2005), and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (2016). - Actress
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Dina Meyer is an American film and television actress best known for her roles as Barbara Gordon in Birds of Prey (2002), Dizzy Flores in Starship Troopers (1997) and Detective Allison Kerry in the Saw installments. Meyer started acting in 1993, with her first major role playing Lucinda Nicholson in the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990). In the same year she made her film debut in the TV movie Strapped (1993). She broke out two years later, playing the cybernetically enhanced bodyguard Jane in the cyberpunk thriller Johnny Mnemonic (1995). In addition to Johnny Mnemonic, Meyer has played roles in other science fiction productions including Starship Troopers, Birds of Prey and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). She also starred as Detective Allison Kerry in the horror/thriller film Saw (2004) and its sequels as well. She has made many guest appearances and played one of the series regular roles in FOX's Point Pleasant (2005). Her additional guest star roles include Criminal Minds (2005), Castle (2009), The Mentalist (2008), Burn Notice (2007), and Nip/Tuck (2003), and she has recurred on ABC's Scoundrels (2010), CW's 90210 (2008), CBS's CSI: Miami (2002), and NCIS (2003).
Meyer resides in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Heather Joan Graham was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Joan (Bransfield), a schoolteacher and children's book author, and James Graham, an FBI agent. She and her sister, actress Aimee Graham, were raised by their strictly Catholic parents. They relocated often, as a result of their father's occupation, and Heather became increasingly shy. Surprisingly, she had a passion for acting from an early age and despite being labeled a 'theater geek' by her peers, she was voted Most Talented by her high school senior class. Unfortunately, her love of acting created a tension between Heather and her family although her mother obligingly drove her to auditions in Hollywood throughout her adolescence.
After high school Heather moved to Los Angeles and received small roles in a variety of films including Drugstore Cowboy (1989). When her career did not take off as quickly as was hoped, Heather enrolled in the University of California at Los Angeles to get her degree in drama. It was at UCLA that she was noticed by actor James Woods and received a subsequent part in a film Woods starred in, Diggstown (1992). Heather dropped out of UCLA after two years to pursue her acting career on a full time basis. Aside from gaining a modeling contract with Emanuel Ungaro Liberte, Heather has risen to star in such films as Swingers (1996), a role she received after being taken out swing dancing by Jon Favreau, to blockbusters like Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), and Boogie Nights (1997).- Actress
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Julianna Margulies was born on June 8, 1966 in Spring Valley (near New York City), as the youngest of three daughters of Francesca (Goldberg), a teacher and dancer in American Ballet, and Paul Margulies, an advertising writer and philosopher. She is of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage (from Romania, Austria, Hungary, and Russia). Until beginning high school in New Hampshire at age 14, she lived several years with her family in Paris and in England. She obtained a B.A. degree in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College, where she appeared in several plays on campus. She jobbed as a waitress until her first role as a prostitute looking to go straight in Out for Justice (1991). It took more than a year to find another role; during that time, she managed to support herself from several regional theater productions and national TV ads. Until she became a regular in ER (1994), she guest starred in several television series and a pilot. Since then, she has starred in several films, including Ghost Ship (2002), Evelyn (2002), and Snakes on a Plane (2006), and headlines the CBS drama The Good Wife (2009), for which she has won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe.- Actress
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Lara Flynn Boyle was born in Davenport, Iowa on March 24, 1970 to 21-year old Sally Boyle. For Sally and young Lara, money was not plentiful so Sally was required to work three jobs in addition to raising baby Lara by herself. Since Lara was mostly around Sally, they developed a bond that still binds Lara and Sally today. Until recently, Sally lived with Lara. Now they only live 10 minutes away from each other. Growing up, Lara had many struggles including dyslexia and a learning disability. Still, she could not let that get to her and she knew she had to be strong. She finally graduated, and, the day after doing so, she and her mother, Sally, moved. They drove on what would be "the road to fame". She soon landed roles in movies like Poltergeist III (1988) and Wayne's World (1992). Since then, she has become a prolific actress on both the small screen and the big screen.- Actress
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Marcia Gay Harden was born on August 14, 1959, in La Jolla, California, the third of five children. Her mother, Beverly (Bushfield), was a homemaker, and her father, Thad Harold Harden, was in the military. The family relocated often -- she first became interested in the theatre when the family was living in Greece, and she had attended plays in Athens. Harden began her college education at American universities in Europe and returned to the US to complete her studies at the University of Texas in 1983; went on to earn an MFA at NYU, and, thereafter, embarked on her acting career.
Although she had acted in a movie as early as 1986, in the little-known The Imagemaker (1986), her first mainstream role, coming alongside some TV movie work, was as a sultry femme fatale in the Coen Brothers' cleverly offbeat homage to the gangster movie, Miller's Crossing (1990). Harden received good reviews for her sultry performance as Verna, a seductive, trouble-making moll. Harden thereafter worked steadily in supporting roles, including the portrayal of Ava Gardner in Sinatra (1992), a television biopic about Frank Sinatra. Harden also worked in the theater and, in 1993, was part of the Broadway cast of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America", playing Harper, the alienated wife of a closeted gay man. It was a demanding dramatic role, and Harden won acclaim for her work, including a Tony award nomination. She returned to movie making in the mid-1990s, continuing to turn in superb supporting performances in films and television.
Harden's road to success was a long one, her work generally being overlooked because the productions were either critically panned or ignored by audiences. However, it was just a matter of time before Harden got a chance to truly show her quality on-screen, and that time came in 2000, with Ed Harris's Pollock (2000), in which she played Lee Krasner, artist and long-suffering wife of Jackson Pollock. Harden's performance was deeply moving and unforgettable and earned her the Oscar and New York Film Critic's Circle awards for best supporting actress. Continuing to work prolifically in features and television, she earned another Oscar nomination in 2003 for her supporting role in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Harden having earlier worked with Eastwood in 2000's Space Cowboys (2000).
Harden's work often makes otherwise mediocre productions worth watching, fully inhabiting any character she portrays. She was married to Thaddaeus Scheel, with whom she worked on The Spitfire Grill (1996), from 1996 to 2012. The couple have three children, a daughter Eulala Scheel, and twins Julitta and Hudson.- Actress
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A Tony and Emmy Award winner, Donna Murphy has forged a career of exceptional diversity, impressing both audiences and critics with her depth and skill. This "seductive actress of major transformative powers" (NY Times) was named one of three "Legit Luminaries," alongside Joan Didion and Christine Ebersole, in Variety's Women's Impact Issue. She will next be seen on Starz' hit series Power as Lorette Walsh, the opponent of Rashad Tate, played by Larenz Tate.
Recognized as a gifted character actress in the film world, she received international critical acclaim for her performance as the mercurial Marie in Todd Solondz' Dark Horse, with Selma Blair, Christopher Walken, and Mia Farrow. In Vera Farmiga's 2011 directorial debut, Higher Ground, she co-starred with Farmiga as Kathleen, the film's troubled matriarch, creating a sensual, heartbreaking characterization. Murphy's animated feature debut, voicing the villainess Mother Gothel in Disney's mega-hit Tangled, earned her rave reviews for her scene stealing performance. She is also widely recognized for her performances as Judy Braddock, the hardworking, suburban single mom to Scarlett Johansson in The Nanny Diaries; the elegant and demanding, but ultimately sympathetic ballet instructor Juliette Simone, in Nicholas Hytner's Center Stage; and Anij, the quietly alluring and wise leader in Star Trek: Insurrection, opposite Sir Patrick Stewart. Other select film credits include: No Pay, Nudity opposite Gabriel Byrne, The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, Darren Aronovsky's The Fountain, Rosalie Octavius in Spider-Man 2, The Door in the Floor, The Astronaut's Wife with Johnny Depp, and Jade, directed by William Friedkin.
One of the most beloved and honored stage actresses of her generation, New York Magazine named Murphy one of "Three Living Legends" of the New York Theater and in 2003 awarded her one of their prestigious New York Awards. Murphy earned her two Tony Awards for her spellbinding performance in Stephen Sondheim's Passion and for her "resplendent, matchless" (New York Post) portrayal of Anna Leonowens in Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic The King and I. For her hilarious comic tour de force as Ruth Sherwood in the Broadway Revival of Wonderful Town, she received Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Astaire Awards, as well as a Tony® nomination. Her mesmerizing performance as the Austrian chanteuse, Lotte Lenya, in Hal Prince's production of LoveMusik, earned her Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and another Tony nomination. She garnered yet another Tony Award nomination and rave reviews for her performance as a Yiddish Theater star during the Holocaust in Roundabout Theatre Company's The People in the Picture.
Murphy's off-Broadway theater highlights include three of the most successful productions in New York City Center Encores! History: Anyone Can Whistle, Follies, and Wonderful Town; Tony Kushner's production of Helen; Lincoln Center Theater's Hello, Again and Twelve Dreams opposite Mischa Barton. For Shakespeare in the Park's 50th Anniversary season, Murphy took on the role of the Witch in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, which also starred Amy Adams, Jessie Mueller, and Denis O'Hare. She earned Drama League and Drama Desk nominations for her performance.
Murphy returned to Broadway in 2017 when she shared the iconic role of Dolly Gallagher Levi with the legendary Bette Midler in the Tony Award winning revival of Hello, Dolly! She received great critical acclaim for the "gutsiest star turn in town" (NY Daily News) and "her own megawatt glow; her peerless musical-comedy technique, deep-dish characterization and supple vocals." (The Hollywood Reporter)
Murphy's first television film, HBO's "Someone Had to be Benny," earned her a Daytime Emmy as Best Actress in a Drama Special or Series, as well as a Cable Ace Award, and she starred as Jane Green, the matriarch of a prominent Southern family in PBS' Civil War drama series, "Mercy Street." Select recurring and guest star appearances include NBC's "The Blacklist," ABC's " Quantico", the mysterious "elegant woman" Angela Forrester in ABC's "Resurrection," include USA's "Royal Pains", "The Good Wife", "The Mentalist", "Ugly Betty", "Law & Order: Criminal Intent", "Law & Order: SVU", "Damages", "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", "CSI", "Law & Order", "The Practice", "Ally McBeal", Stephen Bochco's "Murder One" (ABC), and the PBS Broadcast of the Emmy Award winning "Sondheim! The Birthday Concert," the 2000 and 2002 Kennedy Center Honors (CBS.)
Murphy's additional starring television performances include Darlene Garretti on CBS' "Made in Jersey" alongside Janet Montgomery and Kyle McLaughlin, the steely Denise Goodman on TNT's "Trust Me" with Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanaugh, Heather Olshansky in CBS' "Hack" opposite David Morse, and her critically acclaimed comedic performance as the neurotic psychiatrist Dr. Ruby Stern on ABC's sitcom, "What About Joan." Her television films include Lifetime's "House of Versace," opposite Gina Gershon, Showtime's political drama "The Last Debate,"and Mary Todd Lincoln in "The Day Lincoln Was Shot" (TNT.)
A versatile singer, she can be heard on a number of recordings including Tangled (Disney Soundtrack), The People in the Picture (Kritzerland), LoveMusik (Ghostlight), Wall to Wall Sondheim (Symphony Space), Wonderful Town (DRG), Leonard Bernstein's New York (Nonesuch), Hello Again (RCA Victor), The King and I (Varese Sarabande), the Grammy Award winning Passion (Angel), and Over the Moon: The Broadway Lullaby Project, to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Young Survival Coalition.
Ms. Murphy, born in Queens, New York and raised in Hauppauge, New York and Topsfield, Massachusetts, studied with the legendary Stella Adler and at the Lee Strasberg Institute. For her contribution to the Arts, Culture and Public life, she's received special honors from New York Magazine, Symphony Space, Urban Stages, The Abingdon Theater Company, Greenwich Village's Caring Community, the Women's Project, The Little Orchestra Society, Irish America Magazine, the Breukelein Institute and Emerson College. She donates her time and efforts to a number of organizations, including the Worldwide Orphan's Foundation, Berwin Lee London New York Playwrights, Inc., The Drama League, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and The Actors Fund. She is the proud mother of one daughter and two stepdaughters, and happily resides in New York City.- Actress
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Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many productions including in the West End and Broadway.- Producer
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Jada Koren Pinkett Smith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Robsol Grant Pinkett, Jr., a contractor, and 'Gammy' Adrienne Banfield Norris, a nurse. They divorced after only a few months of marriage. Her father is of African-American descent and her mother is of Afro-Caribbean ancestry (from Barbados and Jamaica). Jada majored in dance and choreography at the Baltimore School for the Arts, where one of her classmates was Tupac Shakur. She spent a year at the North Carolina School of the Arts before dropping out to pursue her career in acting. Her big break came in 1991 when she was cast in the part of a college frosh on the television sitcom A Different World (1987). She made her feature film debut two years later in Menace II Society (1993). She did not gain widespread recognition, however, until her role opposite Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor (1996). In addition to being in front of the camera, she has spent time behind it directing music videos. Pinkett-Smith is married to Will Smith, and they have a son, Jaden Smith; and a daughter, Willow Smith.- Estella Warren was a synchronized swimmer from the age of 7 until 17 in her native Canada. She moved away from home at 12 to train for the Canadian National Team. She was the Canadian National Champion for three years and represented her country at the World Aquatic Championship, where she placed second. A talent scout who came to a charity high school fashion show in which she appeared was impressed enough with her to take a Polaroid of her and send it to a New York City modeling agency. She was almost immediately signed to a modeling contract, and eventually appeared in "Sports Illustrated", "Vogue", "Vanity Fair" and two TV commercials for Chanel #5 perfume, both directed by Luc Besson. She decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and has appeared in films with such stars as Sylvester Stallone.
- Actress
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Sharon Stone was born and raised in Meadville, a small town in Pennsylvania. Her strict father was a factory worker, and her mother was a homemaker. She was the second of four children. At the age of 15, she studied in Saegertown High School, Pennsylvania, and at that same age, entered Edinboro State University of Pennsylvania, and graduated with a degree in creative writing and fine arts. She was a very smart girl (with an IQ of 154), became a bookworm, and once was told that a suitable job for her (and her brains) was to become a lawyer. However, her first love was still the black-and-white movies, especially those featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. So, the 17-year-old Sharon got herself into the Miss Crawford County and won the beauty contest.
From working part-time as a McDonald's counter girl, she worked her way up to become a successful Ford model, both in TV commercials and print ads. In 1980, she made her acting debut in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980) as "pretty girl in train". Her first speaking part, though, was in Wes Craven's horror movie, Deadly Blessing (1981). She struggled through many parts in B-movies, notably King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Action Jackson (1988). She was also married in 1984 to Michael Greenburg, the producer of MacGyver (1985), but they divorced two years later.
She finally got her big break with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall (1990) and also posed nude for Playboy, a daring move for a 32-year-old actress. But it worked; she landed the breakthrough role as a sociopath novelist, "Catherine Tramell", in Basic Instinct (1992). Her interrogation scene has become a classic in film history and her performance captivated everyone, from MTV viewers, who honored her with Most Desirable Female and Best Female Performance Awards, to a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. After she got famous, she didn't want to be typecast, so she played a victim in Sliver (1993), and, in Intersection (1994), she was the aloof, estranged wife of Richard Gere. These movies didn't "work," so she got herself again into more aggressive roles , such as The Specialist (1994) with Sylvester Stallone and The Quick and the Dead (1995) with Gene Hackman.
But it wasn't until she played a beautiful but drug-crazy wife of Robert De Niro in Casino (1995) that she got far more than just fame and fortune--she also received the acknowledgment of the movie industry for her acting ability. She received her first Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. She did a couple of films afterwards, teaming up with Isabelle Adjani in Diabolique (1996), and as a woman waiting for her death penalty in Last Dance (1996). In 1998, she married a newspaper editor,Phil Bronstein but they divorced later in 2004. She received her third Golden Globe nomination for The Mighty (1998), a film that her company, "Chaos", also co-executive produced. The next year, she played the title role in Gloria (1999) and entered her first comedic role in The Muse (1999), which gave her another Golden Globe nomination.
Sharon Stone, a diva who thoroughly enjoys her hard-won stardom, is now a mother of three children: Roan, Laird and Quinn.- Actress
- Writer
The daughter of Canadian actor Christopher Plummer and American actress Tammy Grimes, Amanda Plummer was born in New York City on March 23, 1957. Her breakthrough role came when she starred opposite Robin Williams in The Fisher King (1991). However, Plummer may be best remembered for her work in the Quentin Tarantino classic Pulp Fiction (1994). Tarantino wrote the parts of two robbers who hold up a restaurant specifically for Plummer and her partner-in-screen-crime Tim Roth. Since that stand-out role, Plummer has continued to appear in a wide variety of films, including The Prophecy (1995), Freeway (1996), and My Life Without Me (2003). Plummer has also appeared in the films Butterfly Kiss (1995) as "Eunice" by Michael Winterbottom, My Life Without Me (2003) by Isabel Coixet, Pax (1994) by Eduardo Guedes, Daniel (1983) by Sidney Lumet, Ken Park (2002) by Larry Clark and, lately, The Making of Plus One (2010) and Inconceivable (2008), both by Mary McGuckian.
She has often performed on stage. Her highly acclaimed work on Broadway has garnered her a Tony award and two Tony Award nominations as well as the Outer Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk Award. She was honored with three Emmy awards, and one Emmy nomination, a Saturn Award, a DVDX nomination, a CableAce Award and a Golden Globe nomination. In 1988, she was honored with the Anti-Defamation League Award for Woman of Achievement.
On stage, Plummer appeared as Alma in Tennessee Williams's "Summer and Smoke" with Kevin Anderson, directed by Michael Wilson. At the Stratford Theater in Ontario, she was Joan of Arc in an original adaptation of "The Lark" by Jean Anouilh, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.
She appeared as Polly in "The Gnadiges Fraulein" with Elizabeth Ashley, and as Kyra in the world premiere of "One Exception", both by Tennessee Williams, at the Hartford Stage.
On Broadway, she appeared as Jo in "A Taste of Honey" (nominated for a Tony Award, and Drama Desk Award, and received the Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World Awards); as Agnes in "Agnes of God" with Geraldine Page (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle, and Boston Critics Awards); as Eliza in "Pygmalion" with Peter O'Toole and John Mills (Tony Award nomination); as Laura in "The Glass Menagerie" with Jessica Tandy; and as Dolly in "You Never Can Tell" by George Bernard Shaw.
Among her off-Broadway shows are "A Lie of the Mind" as Beth, directed and written by Sam Shepard with Harvey Keitel, Aidan Quinn and Geraldine Page, "Killer Joe" by Tracy Letts, "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More" by Tennessee Williams, and "A Taste of Honey" with Valerie French. In England, at the Guilford Theatre, she appeared as Eliza Doolittle in "Pygmalion," and at the Royal Court Theatre performed in "This Is a Chair," directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Carol Churchill.
Her regional work includes Juliet in "Romeo & Juliet" (Hollywood Dramalogue Award) and Sonya in "Uncle Vanya," Frankie in "A Member of the Wedding," "Two Rooms," and "The Wake of Jamey Foster" by Beth Henley.
In television, she is the recipient of three Emmy Awards, one Emmy nomination, a Cable Ace Award, and a Golden Globe nomination. She appeared as Lucky in the filmed workshop, "Core Sample - Goli Otok" with Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave, directed by Lenka Udovicki, the artistic director of The Ulysses Theater on Brijuni, Croatia, and also in Lucky McKee's film Red (2008).- Actress
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Tatiana Gabrielle Maslany was born September 22, 1985 in Regina, Saskatchewan, to Renate, a translator, and Dan, a woodworker. She graduated from Dr. Martin LeBoldus High school in 2003. She was a well respected student, and participated as often as possible in school productions. She is well known for her participation in the Canadian Improv Games. Maslany starred in the 2006 television movie, Booky Makes Her Mark (2006) along with Megan Follows and Stuart Hughes.
She had supporting roles in the films Eastern Promises (2007) and The Vow (2012), and came to fame starring in the series Orphan Black (2013), playing multiple roles. Maslany also had a large role in the 2015 film Woman in Gold (2015), playing a young version of Maria Altmann, Helen Mirren's character.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci was born on September 30, 1964 in the Italian village of Città di Castello, Umbria, the only child of Brunella Briganti and Pasquale Bellucci. She originally pursued a career in the legal profession. While attending the University of Perugia, she modeled on the side to earn money for school, and this led to her modeling career. In 1988, she moved to one of Europe's fashion centers, Milan, and joined Elite Model Management. Although enjoying great success as a model, she made her acting debut on television in 1990, and her American film debut in Bram Stoker's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Her role in the French thriller The Apartment (1996), shot her to stardom as she won the French equivalent of an Oscar nomination. Other credits include Malena (2000), Under Suspicion (2000) and Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001).- Actress
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Intriguing, inspiring, and never less than interesting -- key adjectives in describing the career of Beverly D'Angelo, which has well passed the four-decade mark. Perhaps deserving better movies than she generally found herself in, she nevertheless was always an object of fascination and the one to watch...whatever the role. Hardly the shrinking violet type, Hollywood counted on her for her colorful personality, down-to-earth demeanor and scene-stealing capabilities.
Beverly Heather D'Angelo was born on November 15, 1951 in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of musicians Priscilla Ruth (Smith), a violinist, and Eugene Constantino "Gene" D'Angelo, a bass player who also managed a TV station. Her maternal grandfather, Howard Dwight Smith, was the architect who designed the Ohio ("Horseshoe") Stadium at Ohio State University. Her mother had English, Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry, and her father was of Italian descent. Beverly once attended an American school in Florence, Italy.
Initially drawn to art, Beverly worked as a animator/cartoonist at Hanna-Barbera Productions before moving to Canada to pursue a rock singing career, To make ends meet she worked as a session vocalist and sang anyplace she could -- from coffeehouses to topless bars. At one point the teenager was invited to join up with rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins. Beverly's acting career started up when she left the Hawkins band and joined the Charlottetown Festival repertory company. She was touring Canada as Ophelia in "Kronborg: 1582", a rock musical version of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" when the renowned Colleen Dewhurst caught a performance and saw promise in both Beverly and the show. Eventually musical director Gower Champion got into the mix and the show was completely revamped, becoming the rock musical "Rockabye Hamlet", which made its way to Broadway in 1976. While the show itself was short-lived, Beverly's Ophelia attracted fine notices and she soon found herself on the West coast with film and TV opportunities. After this point, she seldom returned to the stage but did star alongside Ed Harris in the 1995 off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard's "Simpatico", which earned her a Theatre World Award.
A role in the TV miniseries Captains and the Kings (1976) led to bit parts in The Sentinel (1977) and in the Woody Allen classic Annie Hall (1977). A string of co-starring roles followed with First Love (1977), the Clint Eastwood starrer Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and the film adaptation of the hit counterculture musical Hair (1979). Best of all for Beverly was her powerhouse featured performance as the one-and-only Patsy Cline in the acclaimed biopic Coal Miner's Daughter (1980). Both she and Oscar winner Sissy Spacek (as fellow country singer Loretta Lynn) expertly supplied their own vocals.
Playing everything from tough-as-nails prostitutes, party girls and barflies to rich, prim widows and depressed, alcoholic moms, most of Beverly's output was solid during this time. Playing happening kind of gals, she customarily rose above much of the standard comedic or dramatic material given. An interesting gallery of offbeat characters came her way in a number of hit-or-miss features: Paternity (1981), Finders Keepers (1984), Big Trouble (1986), Maid to Order (1987), High Spirits (1988), Cold Front (1989), Daddy's Dyin'... Who's Got the Will? (1990), The Pope Must Diet (1991), Man Trouble (1992), Lightning Jack (1994), The Crazysitter (1994), Merchants of Venus (1998) and Sugar Town (1999). She also sang in a few of these films.
Beverly attracted mainstream notice as Chevy Chase's beleaguered wife in the comedy spoof Vacation (1983) and its three sequels. Stronger roles came with such films as the English/Irish production The Miracle (1991) and the Neo-Nazi film American History X (1998). She was also a favorite of director John Schlesinger who used her in Honky Tonk Freeway (1981) and Eye for an Eye (1996), among others. In the spoof Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills (1996), in which she served as associate producer, Beverly gamely starred as a chic Beverly Hills housewife who turns into a flying prehistoric reptile by night. Other offbeat independent filming includes Illuminata (1998), Merchants of Venus (1998), Weaver of Claybank (1915), Black Water Transit (2009), The House Bunny (2008), Episode #7.33 (2007), Bounty Killer (2013), Frat Pack (2018) and Dreamland (2016).
On TV, Beverly scored well as matricide victim Kitty Menendez in Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills (1994) and earned an Emmy-nomination (and arguably gave the best performance) as Stella Kowalski opposite "Hair" co-star Treat Williams in the TV remake of A Streetcar Named Desire (1984). Other topnotch TV mini-movies included Sweet Temptation (1996) and Judgment Day: The John List Story (1993), in which she played Robert Blake's devout wife. On primetime she has been cast quite assertively in recurring parts -- she has been spotted on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) as a defense attorney; Entourage (2004) as a talent agent; Shooter (2016) as a national security advisor; and Insatiable (2018) as a scheming beauty contestant coach.
Beverly's off-camera romantic life has been just as interesting. Following her relationship with "Hair" director Milos Forman, she married Lorenzo Salviati, an economics student who also was an Italian duke. She left Hollywood and lived with him in Europe, but separated after two years and returned. A six-year relationship with Irish director Neil Jordan was followed by one with Oscar-winning production designer Anton Furst; this ended tragically when, just weeks after their breakup, he committed suicide. A former union with the volatile Al Pacino produced twins Olivia and Anton, who were born in 2001.
These days, Beverly's career on camera has remained secondary to the raising of her children. Occasionally she has made use of her vocal talents performing at L.A. nightclubs and with a jazz band that included brother Jeff. From time to time she still lights up the screen as a brash professional or somebody's colorful mom; whatever time she has on screen, whether major or minor, it is always welcomed and never, ever less than...interesting.- Actress
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- Camera and Electrical Department
P.J. (Pamela Jayne) Soles was born on July 17, 1950 in Frankfurt, Germany. Her father came from Holland and her mother from New Jersey. Because her father was working for an international insurance company, the family moved all over the world. P.J. lived in Casablanca, Morocco, and Maracaibo, Venezuela, where she learned to speak fluent Spanish, and then Brussels, Belgium, where she went to high school at the International School of Brussels. When she was at Briarcliff College, she wanted to become the first woman ambassador to the Soviet Union. This career goal changed when she visited the Actors Studio in New York City. She moved to Manhattan and began acting in commercials and modeling for fashion magazines. She was married to J. Stephen Soles during her years in New York, but then made the move to Los Angeles to work in television and movies. At this time, she and Soles' got divorced, but she decided to keep her name as P.J. Soles. She was among the hundreds of actors auditioning for Brian De Palma and George Lucas in their joint casting session for Carrie (1976) and Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). After Carrie, she went to Georgia to film Our Winning Season (1978) and met actor Dennis Quaid. They were married in 1978 in Texas on a dude ranch.
P.J. starred in Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) with Ramones. Next she filmed Private Benjamin (1980) and then Stripes (1981). She and Quaid were divorced in 1983. P.J. continued doing numerous television and film roles, and then married Skip Holm, who was the stunt pilot on The Right Stuff (1983). They have two children and were divorced in 1998. Still active in television and film, P.J. manages not to let her fans down, but keeps them interested in her work, which keeps on getting better, making her one of the most versatile actresses of her time.- Actress
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Emma Thompson was born on April 15, 1959 in Paddington, London, into a family of actors - father Eric Thompson and mother Phyllida Law, who has co-starred with Thompson in several films. Her sister, Sophie Thompson, is an actor as well. Her father was English-born and her mother is Scottish-born. Thompson's wit was cultivated by a cheerful, clever, creative family atmosphere, and she was a popular and successful student. She attended Cambridge University, studying English Literature, and was part of the university's Footlights Group, the famous group where, previously, many of the Monty Python members had first met.
Thompson graduated in 1980 and embarked on her career in entertainment, beginning with stints on BBC radio and touring with comedy shows. She soon got her first major break in television, on the comedy skit program Alfresco (1983), writing and performing along with her fellow Footlights Group alums Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. She also worked on other TV comedy review programs in the mid-1980s, occasionally with some of her fellow Footlights alums, and often with actor Robbie Coltrane.
Thompson found herself collaborating again with Fry in 1985, this time in his stage adaptation of the play "Me and My Girl" in London's West End, in which she had a leading role, playing Sally Smith. The show was a success and she received favorable reviews, and the strength of her performance led to her casting as the lead in the BBC television miniseries Fortunes of War (1987), in which Thompson and her co-star, Kenneth Branagh, play an English ex-patriate couple living in Eastern Europe as the Second World War erupts. Thompson won a BAFTA Award for her work on the program. She married Branagh in 1989, continued to work with him professionally, and formed a production company with him. In the late 80s and early 90s, she starred in a string of well-received and successful television and film productions, most notably her lead role in the Merchant-Ivory production of Howards End (1992), which confirmed her ability to carry a movie on both sides of the Atlantic and appropriately showered her with trans-Atlantic honors - both an Oscar and a BAFTA award.
Since then, Thompson has continued to move effortlessly between the art film world and mainstream Hollywood, though even her Hollywood roles tend to be in more up-market productions. She continues to work on television as well, but is generally very selective about which roles she takes. She writes for the screen as well, such as the screenplay for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), in which she also starred as Elinor Dashwood, and the teleplay adaptation of Margaret Edson's acclaimed play Wit (2001), in which she also starred.
Thompson is known for her sophisticated, skillful, though her critics say somewhat mannered, performances, and of course for her arch wit, which she is unafraid to point at herself - she is a fearless self-satirist. Thompson and Branagh divorced in 1994, and Thompson is now married to fellow actor Greg Wise, who had played Willoughby in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). Thompson and Wise have one child, Gaia, born in 1999. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama.- Actress
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Renée O'Connor was born in Houston, Texas, to Walter and Sandra O'Connor (now Wilson), and raised in Katy, a Houston suburb. She attended Taylor High School and the Houston High School of Visual and Performing Arts. Renée has one older brother, Chris.
Renée appeared in commercials, including one for McDonalds, a feature film called Night Game (1989), and some work for The All New Mickey Mouse Club (1989) (aka "The Mickey Mouse Club) in 1989. She also made guest appearances on TV shows such as NYPD Blue (1993), before starring as "Deineira" in the Hercules TV movie Hercules: The Legendary Journeys - Hercules and the Lost Kingdom (1994). She caught the eyes of executive producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, who cast Renée in the 1994 film Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995). Soon after, Hercules' sister show, Xena: Warrior Princess (1995) was launched, and Renée was cast as "Gabrielle", Xena's trusty sidekick.- Actress
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Wendy Jane Crewson is a Canadian actress and producer. She began her career appearing on Canadian television, before her breakthrough role in 1991 dramatic film The Doctor. Crewson has appeared in many Hollywood films, including The Good Son (1993), The Santa Clause (1994) and its sequels The Santa Clause 2 (2002) and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), as well as Air Force One (1997), Bicentennial Man (1999), What Lies Beneath (2000), The 6th Day (2000), The Covenant (2006) and Eight Below (2006). She also starred in a number of independent movies, such as Better Than Chocolate (1999), Suddenly Naked (2001), Perfect Pie (2002), Away from Her (2006), Into the Forest (2015) and Room (2015). Crewson has won six Gemini Awards, two Canadian Screen Awards and ACTRA Award for her performances on television. She played leading roles in a number of television films, include playing Joanne Kilbourn in six movies based on novels by Gail Bowen. She had recurring roles on American television series 24 and Revenge, and the Canadian television series Frankie Drake Mysteries. From 2012 to 2017, Crewson co-starred in the CTV medical drama Saving Hope.- Actress
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Film and television actress Christine Adams was born in London, United Kingdom.
She starred on several British and American films and television series since early 2000s.
On television, she is known for roles as "Katherine Williams Osgood" on the British miniseries, NY-LON (2004); "Simone Hundin" on the American comedy-drama series, Pushing Daisies (2007) (2007-2009); as "Lena Boudreaux" on the short-lived ABC legal drama series, The Whole Truth (2010); and as "Mira" in FOX's science-fiction drama series, Terra Nova (2011).
In 2012, she starred, opposite Anthony LaPaglia, on the ABC drama series, Americana (2012). Adams appeared on several films, such as Submerged (2005), Batman Begins (2005), Eye of the Dolphin (2006), Green Flash (2008), Beneath the Blue (2010), Tron: Legacy (2010) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). She resides in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Marina Sirtis was born in London, England, to Greek parents, Despina (Yianniri), a tailor's assistant, and John Sirtis. Her parents did not want her to become an actress. As soon as Marina completed high school, she secretly applied to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After her graduation, she worked in musical theater, repertory and television. In 1986, she moved to Los Angeles, California to boost her career. For six months, she auditioned for roles but was unsuccessful. Just before she planned to go back home, she got the role of Counselor Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). After the series ended, she reprised her role for a string of successful Star Trek films: Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). In 1992, Sirtis married rock guitarist Michael Lamper. She occasionally attends Star Trek conventions so that her loving fans can meet her, and she can meet the fans.- Perky actress and producer Ellie Cornell was born in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, USA. After graduating from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida in 1986, Cornell had a small guest appearance in a 1988 episode of Thirtysomething (1987). The same year, she played an assertive reporter in the Oscar-nominated comedy movie Married to the Mob (1988).
Cornell's best-known role also came about in 1988 when she auditioned for parts in two horror films: lead girl Alice Johnson in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) and Rachel Carruthers, foster sister of Jamie Lloyd, in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), winning the latter. Halloween 4 grossed over three times its budget and Cornell reprised her role as Rachel in its sequel, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989). After appearing in episodes of TV shows ABC Afterschool Specials (1972) and Gabriel's Fire (1990), as well as the made-for-television movie Chips, the War Dog (1990), Cornell was set to appear in the comedy A League of Their Own (1992), but had to drop out after finding out she was pregnant.
After an eight-year break from the film industry, Cornell returned to executive produce and act in Free Enterprise (1998) and The Specials (2000). She played tough cop Jordan Casper in the critically-panned, video game-based zombie movie House of the Dead (2003) and its sequel, House of the Dead 2 (2005), and appeared in five more horror films in 2005 and 2006. Moreover, Cornell was in the pilot episode of The Event (2010) and played a detective in four episodes of the short-lived Femme Fatales (2011); she also tried a hand at directing Prank (2008) with Halloween 4 and 5 co-star Danielle Harris and horror actress Heather Langenkamp, which fell through, and was interviewed in the documentary Halloween: 25 Years of Terror (2006).
She and her husband also founded production company Mindfire Entertainment and own Ship's Inn, a restaurant in Massachusetts, together. - Toronto native Alexandra Doig was born on June 8th, to Filipina mother Gloria and Irish-Scottish father David. Her parents held season tickets to their local theater, and Lexa was inspired to begin acting after seeing a production of "Porgy and Bess" at the age of nine. She dropped out of high school in grade 13, did modeling and commercial work, and hosted YTV's Video & Arcade Top 10 (1991) with friend Gordon Michael Woolvett.
Her first professional job came at the age of 19, when she was cast opposite William Shatner and Greg Evigan in "TekWar". She went on to appear in several projects for both the big and small screens, including CI5: The New Professionals (1998), Jungleground (1995) and No Alibi (2000), before landing a lead role in Jason X (2001), the 10th installment in the Friday the 13th series. Shortly after, she captured the title role in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda (2000) starring as the Andromeda Ascendant's sophisticated artificial intelligence system. She has also completed guest stints on several popular television shows, including Traders (1996), Earth: Final Conflict (1997), The Chris Isaak Show (2001). Theatre credits include "Arsenic and Old Lace" and "Romeo and Juliet".
In her spare time, Lexa enjoys reading, roller-blading and playing RPG video games, "Dungeons and Dragons" being her favorite. She currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia with husband Michael Shanks, children Mia and Samuel and two cats.