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Alicia Witt

, Actor
Alicia Witt
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  • Born: 21 August 1975
  • Birthplace: Worcester, Massachusetts
  • Best Known As: Co-star of TV's Cybill

Actress Alicia Witt combines willowy good looks with a reputation for braininess. She was home-schooled and received her high school degree at age 14, all the while training and performing as a classical pianist. Child prodigy stories abound, including Witt allegedly writing a letter to Good Housekeeping magazine at age 2 and reciting Shakespeare on TV at age 4. She caught the attention of David Lynch, who cast her in Dune (1984) and, later, Twin Peaks (1990). Between 1995 and 1998 Witt played daughter Zoey Woodbine in the CBS sitcom Cybill and popped up in feature films such as Mr. Holland's Opus (1995, with Terrence Howard) and Citizen Ruth (1996). She has appeared in a number of oddball movies, including the John Waters film Cecil B. Demented (2000, starring Melanie Griffith) and the Tom Cruise headscratcher Vanilla Sky (2001, with Penelope Cruz). A reliable supporting player, she has also been in Two Weeks Notice (2002, with Sandra Bullock), The Upside of Anger (2005, with Keri Russell) and the 2007 thriller 88 Minutes (starring Al Pacino and Leelee Sobieski). She joined the cast of TV's Law & Order: Criminal Intent for its seventh season, in the fall of 2007.

Witt's mother has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having hair over 12 feet long.

 
 
Actor:

Alicia Witt

  • Born: Aug 21, 1975
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '90s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Comedy Drama
  • Career Highlights: Cecil B. Demented, Bongwater, Last Holiday
  • First Major Screen Credit: Fun (1994)

Biography

Since making her film debut in 1984's Dune, Alicia Witt has matured into one of the more steadily employed young actresses in Hollywood. With a resumé that includes both film and television work, the flame-haired Witt has become known for her roles in projects as varied as the TV sitcom Cybill and 1998's teen horror flick Urban Legends.

Born August 21, 1975, in Worcester, MA, Witt displayed a remarkable precocity from an early age. Talking by age two and reading by the age of four, she made her film debut in Dune at the age of nine and earned her high school GED when she was 14. Her next role of any import was on David Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks (1990) and was later followed by a secondary role in 1993's Bodies, Rest & Motion, co-starring Bridget Fonda, Phoebe Cates, Eric Stoltz, and Tim Roth. In 1994, Witt earned Sundance credibility with her turn as a murderous teen in Fun and the following year was introduced to a wider audience with her role as Cybill Shepard's daughter on Cybill. A variety of roles followed in films ranging from the desultory (1995's Four Rooms) to the delightful (Alexander Payne's 1996 satire Citizen Ruth). 1996 also saw Witt in one of her more recognizable roles, as one of Richard Dreyfuss' struggling band students in Mr. Holland's Opus. Her recognition was further heightened with her appearance in 1998's Urban Legends, in which she co-starred with a number of other nascently twinkling stars, including Jared Leto, Joshua Jackson, and Rebecca Gayheart. ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide

 
Wikipedia: Alicia Witt
Alicia Witt
Birth name Alicia Roanne Witt
Born August 21 1975 (1975--) (age 32)
Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.

Alicia Roanne Witt (born August 21, 1975) is an American film, stage and television actress.

Biography

Early life

Witt was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to Diane, a junior high school reading teacher, and Robert Witt, a science teacher and photographer.[1] She has a brother, Ian. Witt was discovered by David Lynch when she appeared on the television show That's Incredible! in 1980; she had recited Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He cast her in the movie Dune (1984), where she played Paul Atreides' young sister Alia Atreides. Afterwards, she left Hollywood to concentrate on her studies and music. She was home schooled by her parents. She studied piano at Boston University and won several national and international classical piano competitions, including the "Bartok-Kabalevsky International Piano Competition".

At age fourteen, Witt earned her high school diploma. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Hollywood with her mother (who was noted from 1988-93 in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest hair) to pursue a career as a full-time actress. Soon, David Lynch, to whom she refers as a mentor, created the role of Gersten Hayward especially for her in his successful series Twin Peaks. He cast her again in Blackout, a segment in his short-lived HBO series Hotel Room. That was the last collaboration between the two for a while.

Adult career

During this time, Witt supported herself by playing piano at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. She went on to play small parts in Mike Figgis' Liebestraum (in which her brother Ian also appears), the Gen-X drama Bodies, Rest & Motion and the TV movie The Disappearance of Vonnie. In 1994, Witt landed her first lead role in a film, playing a disturbed teenager named Bonnie in Fun. She received the Special Jury Recognition Award at the Sundance Festival and was nominated for Best Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards. This performance made Madonna want Witt to be cast as her witch-lover in the first segment The missing ingredient of Four Rooms.

Witt was introduced to a larger audience playing the role of Zoey Woodbine, daughter of actress Cybill Shepherd's character in the sitcom Cybill from 1995 to 1998. Between seasons she starred in films: Mr. Holland's Opus, Alexander Payne's abortion comedy Citizen Ruth, Passion's Way and Bongwater. After Cybill was cancelled, Witt received a leading role in the Scream-ish campus-horror Urban Legend and the animated feature Gen¹³ which was never released because the studio stopped funding before the completion of the movie.

In 2000, Witt had starring roles on the television shows Ally McBeal and The Sopranos; the lead role in the comedy Playing Mona Lisa, an instant-classic turn as an anal porn star in John Waters' Cecil B. Demented, and her stage debut in Robbie Fox's musical The Gift at the now-closed Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles, in which she played a high-priced stripper with a disease. In the years following, Witt's acting career slowed down. She had a small part in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, which was intended as a reference to her roles in Dune and Liebestraum. She also played a college graduate who discussed losing her virginity in the experimental Ten Tiny Love Stories and the trailer-trash girl Barbie in American Girl, which was released to video in 2005.

She appeared in the 2002 romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice. In 2003 and 2004, she turned her back on Hollywood and lived primarily in the UK filming The Upside of Anger opposite Kevin Costner; and she starred as Evelyn in a stage-production of Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things. Between the two projects, she went to South Africa to shoot the German TV movie Kingdom in Twilight which also goes by the name The Sword of Xanten and The Ring of the Nibelungs. She played Kriemhild in this film interpretation of the epic poem Das Nibelungenlied, which was released in the US as Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King. On June 14, 2004, Witt modeled what is believed to be the most expensive hat ever made, for Christie's auction house in London. The Champrau d'Amour, designed by Louis Mariette, is valued at $2.7 million (US) and is covered in diamonds. See the hat.

Witt will join the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent for the 2007-08 season as Det. Nola Falacci, a character who will be a temporary replacement for Julianne Nicholson's character as Nicholson is out on maternity leave.[2]

Filmography

Films

Television

Stage

References

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Who2 Biography. Copyright © 1998-2008 by Who2, LLC. All rights reserved. See the Alicia Witt biography from Who2.  Read more
Actor. Copyright © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alicia Witt" Read more

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