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Téa Leoni Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

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A beautiful actress with a distinctive, honeyed, husky voice, Leoni developed an interest in acting at an early age encouraged by her grandmother, a Broadway performer. She dropped out of college to tour the world and upon her return to the US, was cast in the busted pilot “Angels ‘88″, a remake of the 1970s “Charlie’s Angels”. She made her film debut as the “dream girl” in Blake Edwards’ gender-bending “Switch” (1991). Leoni garnered rave reviews for her non-stereotypical portrayal of a flamboyant blonde bombshell in the Fox sitcom “Flying Blind” (1992-93). She was criticized for an infamous interview in connection with that show in which she said there wasn’t enough sex on TV, at least not enough “all-American, healthy, fun sex.” With her great looks and flamboyant style, Leoni landed the title role in the Fox TV-movie “The Counterfeit Contessa” (1994). As Gina, a streetwise Brooklyn woman swept into New York society and romance with an attorney when she is mistaken for an Italian countess, Leoni earned critical kudos. She and producer Chris Thompson developed the idea for “The Naked Truth” (ABC, 1995-96; NBC 1996-98) in which Leoni created the role of Nora Wilde, a formerly rich divorcee forced to become a tabloid newspaper photographer.

Leoni’s additional feature film credits include Penny Marshall’s “A League of Their Own” (1992), in which Leoni accidentally hit Madonna with a baseball. In Lawrence Kasdan’s overlong oater “Wyatt Earp” (1994), she shone as a tough frontier prostitute. Leoni co-starred with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in “Bad Boys” (1995) as a sexy crime witness who causes two Miami drug enforcement cops to exchange identities. The following year, she once again showed her sultry appeal in David O Russell’s “Flirting With Disaster.”

Leoni once again displayed her pluck as a newswoman who discovers that Earth is about to be destroyed by a meteor in “Deep Impact” (1998). By the time of its release, she had married actor David Duchovny, and she took a brief hiatus for motherhood. Returning to the big screen in 2000, Leoni lent her sexy intelligence to the role of Nicolas Cage’s wife in the holiday fantasy “The Family Man”. The next year, she was among those facing off against dinosaurs in the inevitable sequel “Jurassic Park 3.” In 2002, Leoni starred as Woody Allen’s wife in “Hollywood Ending,” where Allen played a film director who goes blind, and appeared as a celebrity with troublesome addictions in the well-regarded but little-seen “People I Know” (2002) opposite Al Pacino.

The actress next snared one of her highest-profile roles when she appeared as Adam Sandler’s high-strung, out-of-control wife Deborah Clasky in writer-director James L. Brooks’ seriocomic “Spanglish” (2004). Leoni played her character’s emotionally frayed existence at a high pitch, and somehow made her lovable at the same time, despite an abundance of tics and neuroses that seem far from the experience of a normal human being—she also delivered the most raucous orgasm sequence on film since Meg Ryan in “When Harry Met Sally.” After starring in her husband’s directorial debut, “The House of D” (2005), Leoni starred opposite Jim Carrey in the high-profile comedy, “Fun With Dick and Jane” (2005), a remake of the 1976 film starring Jane Fonda and George Segal. In the updated version, Carrey and Leoni played Dick and Jane Harper, a married couple so desperate to retain their deluxe suburban home and luxury cars after Dick loses his job that they resort to armed robbery—even if all they want is an iced mocha.

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Catherine Keener Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

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Overlooked by Hollywood for not possessing a classical leading lady look, dark-haired and sharp-featured Catherine Keener took an alternative route to success, carving out her niche in independent films with a series of diverse, engaging performances that have made her one of the industry’s best-kept secrets. After graduating from college, Keener found work as a casting agent, forming a close friendship with fellow casting director Gail Eisenstadt, who encouraged Keener to pursue acting and cast her in her first film role as a cocktail waitress in “About Last Night …” (1986), exhorting Rob Lowe and Jim Belushi to “Go! Go! Go!” in their drinking contest, thus earning a Screen Actors Guild card. She made her TV debut in a failed pilot (”The Alan King Show” CBS, 1986), had a brief taste of being a regular on the short-lived cop show “Ohara” (ABC, 1987-88) and acted in two 1989 flicks, the Outward Boundish “Survival Quest” (featuring future husband Dermot Mulroney) and the unpromisingly-titled “Curse of the Corn People” (CBS), which actually involved a group of Kansans making a low-budget horror film.

Following small roles in Dennis Hopper’s “Backtrack” (1990) and Blake Edwards’ “Switch” (1991), Keener received her big break as the level-headed and loving Yvonne, confronting Brad Pitt’s preening would-be pop star in cinematographer Tom DiCillo’s writing-directing debut “Johnny Suede” (also 1991), which inaugurated her longstanding collaboration with the director. Feeling she had not got near her due for that picture, DiCillo wrote a part with her in mind, filming first the self-contained short “Scene Six, Take One” (1994) before expanding it into the feature “Living in Oblivion” (1995). An insider’s look at low-budget filmmaking, it featured a wicked send-up of Pitt in the guise of James Le Gros, playing an egocentric, blond-maned star wreaking havoc on a shoestring shoot. Keener starred as an actress who, together with the inept director (Steve Buscemi), cinematographer (Mulroney) and crew, precipitates endless takes of a particularly emotional scene, and DiCillo took his shots at Pitt, showing how an all-powerful star can throw his weight around both overtly and covertly.

Keener was the girlfriend of a boxer-turned-hitman (Alan Gelfant) in “The Destiny of Marty Fine” (1995) and had a small role in Stacy Cochran’s “Boys” (1996) before Nicole Holofcener’s gal-pal film “Walking and Talking” (also 1996) gave her a strong role as a continual loser in love who must come to terms with the impending marriage of her best friend (Anne Heche). That same year, the busy actress portrayed Demi Moore’s judgmental sister-in-law in the Nancy Savoca scripted and helmed segment (”1952″) of HBO’s “If These Walls Could Talk” (in which Heche also appeared in the Cher-directed “1996″) and reunited with DiCillo for the small-town comedy “Box of Moonlight”, playing a flaky local who romances John Turturro. The following year found her back with DiCillo for “The Real Blonde”, his comic exploration of the quest for integrity in the superficial worlds of fashion advertising, rock videos and soap operas. Her job as a makeup stylist for a hotshot fashion photographer (Marlo Thomas) paid most of the bills accrued in her relationship with aspiring actor (no agent, no credits) Matthew Modine, who kept trying to resist the charms of Elizabeth Berkeley.

Keener upped her mainstream profile with a cameo as George Clooney’s former mistress in “Out of Sight” (1998), adapted from Elmore Leonard’s novel, and by portraying Nicholas Cage’s faithful wife in “8mm” (1999). In between she appeared in the ensemble of Neil LaBute’s “Your Friends & Neighbors” (also 1998), a biting look at the tangled relationships of a group of bright, endlessly loquacious urbanites. As Ben Stiller’s significant other, Keener impressed as a woman who realizes her relationship (particularly its sexual component) is not working and determines to do something about it by engaging in a lesbian affair. Enjoying a bit of role reversal in Spike Jonze’s “Being John Malkovich” (also 1999), she earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination as the sexy, bitchy Maxine who finds herself in a love triangle involving a puppeteer (John Cusack) and his wife (a surprisingly frumpy Cameron Diaz), the three of them absolutely gaga about being able to spend time inside Malkovich’s head. She then finished another productive year as Nick Nolte’s abandoned girlfriend whom Jeff Bridges involves in the resolution of a decades old con in “Simpatico”, Matthew Warchus’ screen adaptation of Sam Shepard’s play. In 2002, Keener was one of the high points in Steven Soderbergh’s disappointing return-to-indie-style feature “Full Frontal,” yet again creating a character with a potent combination of compelling and unsympathetic qualities. Worse for the actress was Danny DeVito’s dull and unfunny “Death to Smoochy” (2002), in which she played a TV executive caught in a war between two TV kiddie show hosts (Edward Norton and Robin Williams), and her ease at playing career women with tough exteriors veered into typecasting territory when she appeared in “S1m0ne” (2003), the tale of the success of a computer-generated actress.

Keener earned raves for her role in writer-director Rebecca Miller’s low-profile indie “The Ballad of Jack & Rose” (2005) as the girlfriend of a protective father (Daniel Day-Lewis) whose integration into the family threatens his young daughter (Camilla Bell). She then had a welcome supporting turn in the thriller “The Interpreter” (2005), playing the wisecracking partner of Sean Penn’s federal agent, before being cast in one of her most appealing roles yet as Trish, the alluring, good-natured, too-young grandmother who become the object of the sexually inexperienced Steve Carell’s affection in the hit comedy “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” (2005). Keener infused the character with a genuine warmth and middle-aged sexiness that led audiences to invest in the relationship and helped the film add a more sweet and involving element to its otherwise R-rated arsenal of sex-related jokes. She then played the pivotal role of Nelle Harper Lee in “Capote” (2005), the soon-to-be Pulitzer Prize winner of “To Kill A Mockingbird” fame who helped friend and author Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) investigate a grisly quadruple murder in Holcomb, Kansas that became the eccentric writer’s true crime classic, In Cold Blood. Keener was nominated for several awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

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Bo Derek Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

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Beautiful, glamorous protege and fourth wife of Svengali-like writer-director John Derek who gained fame as the perfect fantasy woman with the trend-setting corn-row hairstyle in the Blake Edwards comedy “10″ (1979). Daughter of a hairstylist for a number of Hollywood figures, Derek met her future husband in Greece when she was just 16, and he promptly cast her–in more ways than one–in a role in his “Fantasies” (1973). Her second film did not come till 1977 with a thankless, if prominent, supporting role in the silly killer whale tale “Orca”, but Derek hit the jackpot when she became a “10″. With her tawny complexion, high cheekbones and voluptuous figure, Derek gave what was probably her most effective performance. She wasn’t called on to do very much other than serve as the perfect “10″, the lush embodiment of the hero’s (Dudley Moore)–and, by extension many male audience members’ sexual fantasies–this Derek certainly accomplished.

She next played in “A Change of Seasons” (1980), but the dull, smirking comedy of adultery didn’t help her career, and neither her part nor performance suggested a developing flair for romantic comedy. Derek and her husband formed a company, Svengali Productions, for their biggest effort together, with John directing Bo as a quasi-feminist Jane in “Tarzan, The Ape Man” (1981). It failed to swing at all with either critics or the public. The duo followed this fiasco with the equally laughable “Bolero” (1984), which, despite the wordplay in the title, which also recalled the theme music from “10″, failed to titillate audiences with nude scenes mixed in with an improbable tale of a virgin who can’t get deflowered.

Derek returned to the big screen with “Ghosts Can’t Do It” (1990), which, like her subsequent efforts “Hot Chocolate” (1992) and “Woman of Desire” (1994), received much less exposure than its leading lady’s skin. Derek also ventured into the land of TV-movies with the aptly titled “Shattered Image” (1994). Although she has often looked lovely and exhibited a modest if callow charm in film and interview appearances, and although she has clearly displayed mettle in her capacities as producer, Derek never quite managed to either get beyond (or for that matter even duplicate) her initial brief impression as a mass media sexual fantasy. She even tried a TV series, playing the matriarch of an Hawaiian-based family in the silly and short-lived “Wind on Water” (1998).

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Jamie Lee Curtis Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

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This lanky, down-to-earth leading lady, the daughter of film stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, made her film debut starring as a bookish suburban teen stalked in John Carpenter’s landmark horror thriller, “Halloween” (1978), which–in the words of British film critic David Thomson–”drew on her iron-jawed air of integrity”. Curtis’ performance played an important role in making that film one of the most profitable ever made. Fittingly, she went on to star in a succession of films of that ilk (”The Fog”, “Prom Night” and “Terror Train”, all in 1980). Curtis reprised the role of Laurie Strode, a resourceful babysitter still having a very bad–and long–night in “Halloween II” (1981). Her early feature career suggested that she was a fighting modern-day successor to Fay Wray and Evelyn Ankers as Hollywood’s resident horror heroine. Curtis’ only previous acting experience had been a few bits on TV’s “Columbo” and “Fantasy Island” and a supporting role as one of five nurses aboard a Navy submarine on the 1977-78 ABC sitcom “Operation Petticoat”. (Coincidentally, her father co-starred with Cary Grant in the original 1959 Blake Edwards-directed film.)

Possessing neither the peaches-and-cream loveliness of her mother nor the sensuous, pretty-boy good looks of her father, Curtis had a sometimes gawky, somewhat androgynous look which combined an appealing ordinariness with a tomboy’s formidably healthy sexiness. She gradually transcended her “scream queen” origins beginning with an affectingly romantic turn in “Love Letters” (1982) and especially her good-hearted prostitute in John Landis’ Eddie Murphy/Dan Aykroyd vehicle, “Trading Places” (1983). The latter revealed Curtis’ flair for comedy as well as other impressive attributes. Consequently she had to live down the nickname ‘The Body’, referring to a slim but curvaceous figure which producers loved to exploit in scantily clad (or briefly nude) fashion. The TV-movie “Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story” (NBC, 1981) used this aspect of her persona appropriately and touchingly, but the major critical and popular failure of the mis-titled “Perfect” (1985) slowed her ascending career a bit.

Curtis kept busy in offbeat and interesting if little-seen fare like “Amazing Grace and Chuck” (1987) and a nice turn as Ray Liotta’s love interest in “Dominick and Eugene” (1988) before comedy turned her career around again with her seductive con in “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988). She smoldered as the girlfriend of a crook (Kevin Kline) posing as a law student to get some valuable information out of his stuffy lawyer (John Cleese). As with Aykroyd, whom Curtis numbers among her favorite co-stars (”Trading Places”; “My Girl” 1991; “My Girl 2″ 1994), she was a strangely apt choice to play opposite funnyman Cleese. (Despite her success with comedy, Curtis derides her abilities to deliver comic lines. She will only admit to being a good “reactor”.)

In a vivid change-of-pace, Curtis proved a credible and impressively complex action heroine in Kathryn Bigelow’s stylish cop flick “Blue Steel” (1990). Box office was disappointing but VARIETY (February 7, 1990) was duly impressed: “Curtis gives an eerily effective performance as Turner, getting across in palpable waves her shaky determination and an inner steeliness born of anger against her abusive father (Philip Bosco).”

Segueing to TV, Curtis also had a respected and enjoyable sitcom duet with Richard Lewis, “Anything But Love” (ABC, 1989-92). This somewhat cynical and neurotic look at yuppie love struck a responsive chord with viewers, especially females. The show never won great ratings but kept rebounding on ABC’s lineup until some bright young exec at Fox Television decided it would tank in syndication. Thus this became an exceedingly rare instance in which the production company, rather than the network, was responsible for a series’ cancellation.

Curtis has appeared in TV-movies from time to time as well, including the pilots “She’s In the Army Now” (ABC, 1981) and “Callahan” (ABC, 1982), the title role in “Annie Oakley” (Showtime, 1985), with Bette Davis in the Southern drama “As Summers Die” (HBO, 1986) and the filmed version of Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer-winning comedy-drama “The Heidi Chronicles” (TNT, 1995). While some reviewers found her miscast in the latter–her portrayal was deemed insufficiently reflective–it is interesting to note that she had previously auditioned for that same title role for the NYC stage production.

Approaching her mid-thirties, Curtis gamely tried on bland but likable young mother and supportive girlfriend roles in “My Girl” and “Forever Young” (1992). Her 1994 work seemed to sum up her career to date with a turn in the deliberately over-the-top “Mother’s Boys” which bizarrely revisited her horror roles of yore, while James Cameron’s “True Lies” gave Curtis–rather surprisingly amid all the action pyrotechnics–a highly enjoyable showcase role encompassing her scream queen, pin-up, comedienne and mother roles. Reviewers remarked upon her rare ability to be simultaneously funny and sexy as she metamorphosed from mousy housewife to would-be sexpot to action heroine. Curtis’ next two comedies failed to live up to her potential: she was an anal retentive Mom put under “House Arrest” (1996) by her resentful teen, and re-teamed with her old “Wanda” cohorts for the underperforming “Fierce Creatures” (1997). The following year, she helped fight a “Virus”, made a cameo appearance in “Homegrown” and surprisingly reprised her best-know role as the terrorized Laurie Strode in “Halloween H2O”, scripted by Kevin Williamson. Next up was a sort-of dual role in a big-screen remake of Disney’s body-swapping comedy “Freaky Friday” (2003). with Curtis playing the fortysomething professional who magically switches bodies with her teenage daughter (Lindsay Lohan) and gain a newfound understanding of one another. The film proved extremely popular with family audiences and pumped fresh new life into Curtis’ career. She next teamed with Tim Allen for the loud, raucous holiday comedy “Christmas with the Kranks” (2004) playing a couple whose planned vacation escape from the commerciality of Christmas is disrupted when a surprise last-minute visit from their college age daughter prompts them to scramble to create a special holiday.

Curtis is also devoted to her duties as an author of children’s books. Since 1993, she has released five volumes filled with charming rhymes (”Today I feel silly. Mom says it’s the heat. I put rouge on the cat and gloves on my feet.”) and wise words.

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