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Rachael Leigh Cook Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Rachael Leigh Cook.jpg

Actress Rachael Leigh Cook began her career in the public eye at a young age, deciding she wanted to model in the second grade. Before she tried her hand at acting, Cook appeared extensively in print campaigns and was featured in a public service announcement encouraging people to be foster parents. The Minnesota native began acting at age 15, a career choice that would have her working steadily through her teen years, appearing as co-star, and later the lead of numerous films and television programs. Petite, with expressive pixyish features and hair that has been sandy blonde, chestnut brown and everything in between, the actress was drafted to play younger versions of performers as varying as Holly Hunter, Angelina Jolie and Parker Posey.

Cook made her film acting debut in the 1994 short “26 Summer Street” and then landed a role in the first feature for which she auditioned, playing Mary Anne in the film “The Baby-sitter’s Club” (1995), based on the popular children’s book series. That same year, she co-starred as Becky Thatcher in “Tom and Huck”, an adaptation of Mark Twain’s classic novel starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Brad Renfro. An auspicious beginning with impressive performances in these family films led to a role in the forgettable “Carpool” (1996). She had a small turn in the 1997 indie comedy “The House of Yes” playing the ubiquitous Parker Posey’s obsessed Jackie-O as a child. 1998 saw the young actress co-starring in “Strike!/The Hairy Bird”, a teen comedy set in the 1960s about a girls’ boarding school fighting the admittance of boys and featuring such up and comers as Kirsten Dunst, Gaby Hoffmann and Monica Keena. As the mischievous and mean-spirited Abby Sawyer in “Strike!”, Cook played a role quite unlike her previous good girl roles. Later that year, the busy actress appeared in “Living Out Loud”, as the teenaged Judith (portrayed as an adult by Holly Hunter).

Perhaps most familiar to TV viewers for her riveting performance in a 1998 anti-heroin public service announcement, Cook has done notable work in movies for television. She starred as a rape victim fighting for custody of her son in the CBS drama “Country Justice” (1997) and essayed the younger version of Angelina Jolie’s character in the miniseries “True Women” (CBS, 1997), a period piece about the women who helped settle Texas. Cook earned favorable notices as a traumatized assault victim in Showtime’s “The Defenders: Payback” (1997), and while the role of the quiet and withdrawn girl called for little dialogue, Cook capably conveyed the character’s emotional fragility.

Cook continued to rack up more film credits, this time in starring roles. As the title character in the teen comedy “She’s All That” (1999), featuring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Anna Paquin, she starred as a high school nobody that a popular boy bets he can turn into a prom queen. Cook was featured in “The Bumblebee Flies Anyway” with Elijah Wood, and starred in “The Hi-Line” (both 1999), a drama about an adopted girl searching for the truth about her origins. While she was wasted as a computer programmer in the pallid thriller “Anti-Trust”, the petite actress shone as an aspiring rock singer and de facto leader of a girl group in “Josie and the Pussycats” (both 2001). Having formed her own production company, Ben’s Sister Prods., Cook went on to co-executive produce and star in the indie thriller “Invisible Girl” (lensed 2001).

Cook’s talent—along with others—was wasted in “Blow Dry” (2001), an overblown romantic comedy set in the world of the National Hairdressing Championships where the more outlandish and hair-sprayed styles win the day. In “Texas Rangers” (2001), an earnest but ultimately failed western about the forming of the famed group of lawman, Cook starred as the daughter of an aging sheriff who falls in love with one of the Rangers (James Van Der Beek). After a role in the bank heist comedy “Scorched” (2002), she appeared in “Tangled” (2003), a revenge thriller about a young man (Shawn Hatosy) who pieces together for police the savage beating that landed him in the hospital, including his involvement with his now-missing girlfriend (Cook) and obsessive roommate (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). She then starred in the coming-of-age drama “Stateside” (2003), playing a schizophrenic singer in love with a rich but lonely teenager (Jonathan Tucker) whose mutual love endures despite his forced entry into the Marines and her admittance to a mental institution.

Cook continued appearing in low-budget features, though given the quality of the finished product an astute observer would question why. In “Bookies” (2003), she played a college student wooed by a small-time bookie (Nick Stahl) who uses his newfound wealth to impress her. Then after a supporting role in the sci-fi noir “The Big Empty” (2003), Cook appeared as a waitress in the indie thriller “29 Palms” (2003), about a drifter (Jeremy Davies) who steals a bag of money and is hunted down by a hitman (Chris O’Donnell) hired by the owners of a Native American casino. Cook then appeared in the French-made “Tempo” (2004), a run-of-the-mill heist picture in which she played a jewelry store clerk with access to the safe who’s approached by a an antique smuggler (Hugh Dancy) to rob the store. She next played an inexperienced reporter who discovers she’s the target of a serial killer in the straight-to-video release “American Crime” (2005).

Cook went back to the suddenly more respectable small screen, starting with the epic miniseries, “Into the West” (TNT, 2005), playing a young woman who forges her own way in an unforgiving land. After an appearance on the sketch variety show “Weekends at the D.L.” (Comedy Central, 2005) and an episode of the animated satire “Robot Chicken” (Cartoon Network, 2004- ), she landed a recurring role on the hit primetime drama, “Las Vegas” (NBC, 2003- ), playing a real estate agent who falls into a steamy affair with Danny McCoy (Josh Duhamel), understudy to the head of security (James Caan) for several Vegas casinos.

Family
Significant Others
Education
Milestones

Celebrity Biography
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Kristen Bell Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Kristen_Bell.jpg

For some actors, success just seems to come naturally. In the case of talented stage and screen beauty Kristen Bell, it wasn’t so much a matter of if she was going to be a star after realizing her dream during an early performance as a banana in Raggedy Ann and Andy at the tender age of 12 — but when she would finally make the big time. Paralyzed with stage fright as she waited for her cue off-stage, Bell was offered a word of encouragement by her supportive mother that would ultimately give her the drive to realize her life’s calling. A native of Detroit whose early stage experiences eventually led her to study at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Bell saw her early dreams of on-stage success begin to come true when she was chosen to portray Becky Thatcher in a Broadway production of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer shortly after arriving in the Big Apple.

Realizing that she had what it took to find success onscreen as well as on-stage, Bell was soon packing her bags for Los Angeles and landing small supporting roles in such features as Polish Wedding and Pootie Tang. She returned briefly to Broadway for a role in the 2002 revival of The Crucible, playing alongside well-known stage and screen actors Liam Neeson and Laura Linney. In 2003, Bell impressed television viewers with a solid performance in the made-for-television drama The King and Queen of Moonlight Bay before moving on to essay the unforgettable role of a young girl struggling to raise her three stepbrothers after their drug-addicted mother is sent to jail in Gracie’s Choice. If television had offered Bell her most successful roles to this point in her career, the magnetic young screen presence still had feature aspirations, as evidenced by her involvement in David Mamet’s 2004 thriller Spartan. Of course, Bell wasn’t about to turn her back on the small screen just yet, and following appearances on such popular series as Everwood and Deadwood, she took the lead as a sort-of new-millennium Nancy Drew on UPN’s Veronica Mars. If that, combined with a lively performance in the Showtime musical spoof Reefer Madness, wasn’t enough to make young Bell a household name, subsequent performances in the college comedy Fifty Pills and the thriller Deepwater would at least serve to expand her feature-film resumé. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

* Born:
on 07/18/80 in Detroit, Michigan

* Job Titles:
Actor

Education
* New York University, New York, musical theatre

Milestones

* 2001 Cast in the Off-Broadway stage musical “Reefer Madness”
* 2001 Made her Broadway debut originating the role of Becky Thatcher in the short lived “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”
* 2002 Appeared on Broadway as part of the original cast of “The Crucible” starring Laura Linney and Liam Neeson
* 2002 Moved to Los Angeles
* 2003 Television debut in the season premiere of “The Shield” playing a gang member’s girlfriend
* 2004 Cast as the title character on UPN’s “Veronica Mars”
* 2005 Will reprise her role in the film version of “Reefer Madness” (Showtime)

Celebrity Biography