Alicia Silverstone

Alicia Silverstone
Silverstone in 2006
Born	October 4, 1976 (1976-10-04) (age 33) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1992–present
Spouse(s)	Christopher Jarecki (2005–present)

Alicia Silverstone (pronounced /əˈliːsiə ˈsɪlvərstoʊn/; born October 4, 1976) is an American actress, author, and former fashion model. She first came to widespread attention in music videos for Aerosmith, and is best known for her roles in Hollywood films such as Clueless (1995) and her portrayal of Batgirl in Batman & Robin (1997).

Early life

Silverstone was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of Deirdre "Didi" (née Radford), a Scottish-born former Pan Am flight attendant, and Monty Silverstone, an English-born real-estate investor and part-time actor.^[1][2][3] Silverstone was raised in a "traditional Jewish household"; her father, a native of east London, is Jewish, and her mother converted to Conservative Judaism before marriage.^[4] Silverstone is the youngest of three children and also has a half-sister, London-based rock singer Kezi Silverstone, and a half-brother, David Silverstone, both from her father's previous marriage. Silverstone attended Crocker Middle School and then San Mateo High School, but did not complete her high school studies. When she was six years old, she began modeling and was subsequently cast in television commercials, the first being for Domino's Pizza. She acquired some early modeling and advertising work and was eventually cast as "dream girl" Jessica on the episode Road Test of The Wonder Years.

Career

Silverstone has won several awards for her film performances including MTV Movie Awards, National Board of Review, and Young Artist Awards. She has been nominated for an Emmy award and a Golden Globe Award. During her career, she turned down several key roles in films, including Dede Truitt in The Opposite of Sex and a role in Scream 3. She was also considered for roles in Scream 2, Bewitched, Little Women and Heartbreakers. She turned down the role of Valerie Malone on Beverly Hills, 90210 in 1994; Tiffani Thiessen was cast instead.

1990s

Silverstone won a leading part in the 1993 film The Crush, playing a teenaged girl who sets out to ruin an older man after he spurns her affections; she won two awards at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards for the role—Best Breakthrough Performance and Best Villain. Silverstone became legally emancipated at the age of 15 in order to work the hours required for the shooting schedule of the film. Also in 1993, Silverstone auditioned for the lead role of Angela Chase in the ABC TV series My So-Called Life, but Claire Danes was chosen for the role instead. Alicia made some television movies in her early career including Torch Song, Cool and the Crazy and Scattered Dreams.

After seeing her in The Crush, Marty Callner decided Silverstone would be perfect for a role in a music video he was directing for the band Aerosmith, called "Cryin'"; she was subsequently cast in two more videos,"Amazing" and "Crazy". These were hugely successful for both the band and Silverstone, making her a household name (and also gaining her the nickname, "the Aerosmith chick"). They also got her noticed by filmmaker Amy Heckerling, who, after seeing them, decided to cast her in Clueless.

Clueless became a sleeper hit and critical darling during the summer of 1995. Silverstone's performance was well received, and she was branded the spokeswoman for an emerging young generation. As a result, she signed a deal with Columbia-TriStar worth $10 million. As part of the package, she got a three-year first-look deal for her own production company, First Kiss Productions. Silverstone also won "Best Female Performance" and "Most Desirable Female" at the 1996 MTV Movie Awards for her performance in the film. In the same year, Silverstone starred in the erotic thriller The Babysitter, film adaptation of the novel by Dean Koontz, Hideaway and the French drama about Americans New World.

Silverstone's next role was as Batgirl in Batman & Robin, and while it was not a critical success,^[5] the film grossed $238,207,122 worldwide.^[6] Silverstone's turn as Batgirl was not well received, and won her a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress^[7]. However she also won a Blimp Award at the Kid's Choice Awards for the role. She suffered further bad press for allegedly striking a pedestrian with her vehicle in a crosswalk.^[8] In addition to Batman & Robin, Silverstone also starred alongside Benicio del Toro and Christopher Walken in 1997's dark comedy Excess Baggage, which was the first movie to be released by her production company, First Kiss Productions ^[9].

Silverstone ended the 1990s with the Saturn Award-nominated romance/comedy film Blast from the Past which also stars Brendan Fraser, Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek. In 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90's she was ranked #5. Topsocialite.com listed her as the 3rd Sexiest woman of the 90s.^[10]

2000s

In 2000, Silverstone appeared in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of the Shakespeare play Love's Labour's Lost, in which she was required to sing and dance. In 2001, Silverstone provided the voice of Sharon Spitz, the lead character in the Canadian animated television Braceface. During this time she also made the films Global Heresy and Scorched. After removing herself from the public eye for a few years, she resurfaced in the short-lived 2003 NBC television show Miss Match, which was cancelled after 11 episodes. Silverstone later acknowledged that she hates the trappings of fame, stating that "Fame is not anything I wish on anyone. You start acting because you love it. Then success arrives, and suddenly you're on show".^[11]

Alicia Silverstone photographed by Jerry Avenaim in 2005

After the cancellation of Miss Match in 2003, Silverstone did a pilot with Fox called Queen B, in which she would have played a former high school prom queen named Beatrice (Bea) who has discovered that the real world is nothing like high school. It was not picked up for production. In 2005, she co-starred with Queen Latifah in Beauty Shop, a spin-off of the BarberShop films, as one of the stylists in the beauty shop. In the same year, she played a reporter alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. in Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, which did well financially, and the direct-to-video film Silence Becomes You.

In 2006, Silverstone starred in another pilot for ABC called Pink Collar, in which she would have worked in a law firm. Like Queen B, this pilot was not picked up for syndication. That year she also starred alongside Ewan McGregor, Mickey Rourke and Sophie Okonedo in the film, Stormbreaker, and starred in the Hallmark Hall of Fame made-for-TV movie Candles on Bay Street based on the book by Cathie Pelletier. She also filmed a pilot for ABC alongside Megan Mullally called Bad Mother's Handbook. She made a cameo appearance in the 2008 comedy film Tropic Thunder.

In early 2009, Silverstone starred in the world premiere of Daniel Sullivan's Time Stands Still at the Geffern Playhouse LA, alongside Anna Gunn, Robin Thomas and David Harbour. The play focuses around a longtime couple and journalistic team who return to New York from an extended stint in the war-torn Middle East. Her performance was described as "a formidable stage presence who creates sparks whenever she performs" ^[12] She will reprise her role for the New York premiere of the play on Broadway, alongside Laura Linney. It will premiere on January 28, 2010, and will be directed by Daniel Sullivan.

Silverstone has filmed Elektra Luxx, along with Timothy Olyphant and Carla Gugino. The movie is a sequel to Women In Trouble, where Gugino plays a porn star whose life is turned upside down when she discovered she is pregnant. The film will be directed by Sebastian Gutierrez and a third installment is planned tentatively titled Women In Ecstasy. She also starred in Rob Thomas' 2009 music video for his single "Her Diamonds".

Personal life

Silverstone has dated famous people including Benicio del Toro, Stephen Dorff, Leonardo DiCaprio, Woody Harrelson, Bryan Mashard, Mozie Chabbouth and Adam Sandler. In a January 2000 interview with FHM, she denied that she dated Kenneth Branagh.

Silverstone married her longtime boyfriend, rock musician Christopher Jarecki (lead singer of group S.T.U.N.), in a beachfront ceremony at Lake Tahoe, on June 11, 2005. After meeting outside a movie theater in 1997, the couple dated for eight years prior to their marriage.^[13] They got engaged about a year before their marriage and Jarecki presented Silverstone with an engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother.^[14]

Silverstone and Jarecki live in an eco-friendly Los Angeles house complete with solar panels and an organic vegetable garden.^[13] She bought the house, shared with a "menagerie of rescued dogs," in 1996.^[14] She also graced the cover of 944 magazine, promoting vegetarianism. She also teamed up with EcoTools to market a natural line of beauty products and bags made of natural hemp and recycled material. In August 2009, Silverstone appeared on the cover of Health Magazine, promoting her new book and beauty products, where she revealed she liked to swim and garden in the nude. She said that friend Woody Harrelson often went nude and got her into nudism. She also revealed she would like to write a children's book.

Silverstone has also recently published the vegan nutrition book, "The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight and Saving the Planet." The guide includes diet and fitness guidance and advice, along with holistic living tips.^[15] It "explores the connection between what we put in our bodies and what we’re doing to the planet, and how choosing the right foods in the kitchen can help you feeling lighter, sexier, and more alive."^[16] She has also produced an online production called "The Kind Life." It is described as an online expansion of her book, focusing on global warming and vegetarian topics.^[17]

Political convictions

Silverstone in a German ad for PETA

Silverstone is noted for being an animal rights and environmental activist. She became a vegan in 1998 after attending an animal rights meeting. "I realized that I was the problem," she told InStyle Home, in spring 2007. "I was an animal lover who was eating animals."^[13] In 2004, Silverstone was voted, "Sexiest Female Vegetarian," by PETA. In 2007, Silverstone appeared nude in a print advertisement and 30-second commercial for PETA championing vegetarianism; the TV spot was subsequently pulled from the Houston, Texas, market by Comcast Cable.^[18] Silverstone has set up a sanctuary for rescued pets in Los Angeles.^[19] She has revealed she struggled with childhood vegetarianism stating "There were times when I would get selfish and eat meat - at eight years old it's hard to stick to your guns - and so through the years I was always starting and stopping trying to be a vegetarian." ^[20]

Federal campaign contribution records also reveal that Silverstone contributed US$500 to Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign.^[21]

On May 23, 2007, Silverstone was a guest on ABC's The View. Moments before she entered, hosts Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck had a heated argument regarding the Iraq war. The video segment^[22] shows Silverstone entering and walking past Hasselbeck to greet the other hosts. Though the interview continued normally and featured easy conversation between Silverstone and Hasselbeck, Access Hollywood^[23] deemed the act a deliberate snub. Hasselbeck later revealed, on an episode of The View which aired September 19, 2007, that Silverstone called and apologized for the incident. Hasselbeck said that Silverstone never meant to be rude, but was simply nervous when she walked on the stage and believed that incident was wrongly perceived by the media. Silverstone supported Barack Obama's presidential candidacy.^[24]

In 2009, she appeared in "The Gaythering Storm," a Funny or Die spoof internet video parodying anti-same-sex marriage commercial "The Gathering Storm." She also appeared in "My Mother's Red Hat" with Alanis Morissette parodying indie movies.

Filmography

Awards and nominations

^[26]

Listing

Silverstone has appeared on the covers of Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly, FHM, Rolling Stone, and other magazines. She appeared in FHM's Denmark, Australia, Netherlands, German, Dutch, South African, Danish, Russian and Romanian editions's 100 Sexiest Women lists several times. She was ranked #5 in Australia's 100 Sexiest Women list in 1998. She has been ranked #3 in FHM-US's Cover Girls.

FHM

• 70 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women In The World (1996)
• 11 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women In The World (1997)
• 16 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women In The World (1998)
• 26 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women In The World (1999)
• 22 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women In The World (2000)
• 20 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women In The World (2001)
• 43 in FHM-USA's 100 Sexiest Women In The World (2001)
• 28 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women In The World (2002)
• 17 in FHM's All Time 100 Sexiest Women Hall of Fame(2009)

Cosmopolitan

• 6 in Cosmopolitan's Fun, Fearless Females of the Year (2003)
• 4 in Cosmopolitan's Fun, Fearless Females of the Year (2004)

Other

• 31 in Celebrity Skin's 50 Sexiest Starlets of All Time (May 1996)
• 94 in Heat Magazine's Top 100 Beautiful Women (2004)
• 12 in VH1's 100 Greatest Teen Stars (February 2006)
• PETA chose her as "Sexiest Female Vegetarian" (2004)
• She has been awarded with Young Hollywood Award in the category "Hottest Coolest Young Veteran" ^[26]
• In 40 Hottest Hotties of the 90's she was ranked #5.
• Topsocialite.com listed her as the 3rd Sexiest woman of the 90s.^[27]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alicia Silverstone

• Alicia Silverstone at the Internet Movie Database
• Alicia Silverstone at PETA (including the ad)
• Alicia Silverstone Video at TV-Click