Téa Leoni

Téa Leoni
Leoni in June 2007
Born	Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni February 25, 1966 (1966-02-25) (age 43) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1989–present
Spouse(s)	Neil Joseph Tardio, Jr. (1991–1995) David Duchovny (1997–present)

Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni (pronounced /ˈteɪ.ə pɑːntəleɪˈoʊniː/; born February 25, 1966), better known by her stage name Téa Leoni, is an American actress. She has starred in a wide range of films including Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Deep Impact, Fun with Dick and Jane, Spanglish, Bad Boys, and most recently Ghost Town.

Early life

Leoni was born in New York City, the daughter of Emily (née Patterson), a dietician and nutritionist, and Anthony Pantaleoni, a corporate lawyer of the firm Fulbright & Jaworski.^[1][2] Leoni’s mother is a native of Texas, and her father is of Italian and Polish descent.^[3][4] Leoni’s paternal grandmother, Helen "Helenka" Tradusa Adamowska (1901 - 1987), was a film and stage actress who was a sister of Józef and Tymoteusz Adamowski, who with Józef's wife, Antonina Szumowska-Adamowska, were the Adamowski Trio.^[5][6] Leoni's paternal great-grandfather was the brother of Italian economist and politician Maffeo Pantaleoni.^[5]

Career

Leoni attended Brearley School and The Putney School. She attended but did not complete studies at Sarah Lawrence College. In 1988, she was cast as one of the stars of Angels 89, an updated version of the 1970s show Charlie's Angels. In May 1988, Life magazine ran a story on the casting of this new series. After production delays, the show never aired. The following year, Leoni starred as "Lisa DiNapoli" in the TV daytime drama Santa Barbara.

She went on to appear in the women's-baseball film A League of Their Own (1992) and later that year starred with Corey Parker in the single-season Fox sitcom Flying Blind, playing a beautiful, eccentric, downtown-Manhattan libertine who falls in love with an ordinary Long Island college graduate. In February 1995, she appeared in the sitcom Frasier as the fiance of Sam Malone, portrayed by guest star Ted Danson, in a crossover from Cheers.

That same year, Leoni landed the lead role in the sitcom The Naked Truth, playing Nora Wilde, a tabloid news journalist. The show ran through 1998.

A number of film roles came along, including a starring one in Deep Impact, a big-budget disaster film about a comet menacing Earth. Leoni also has been seen in films like Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Bad Boys and You Kill Me. She starred as a film studio executive in Hollywood Ending for director Woody Allen, portraying his ex-wife, and in Spanglish as the emotionally unstable wife of Adam Sandler.

Leoni ranked #79 on the FHM "100 Sexiest Women of 2000" list.^[7]

Personal life

Leoni states in the October 27, 2006, issue of Life magazine that she became a Goodwill ambassador for UNICEF partially because her paternal grandmother was the president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF for 25 years.

Leoni married her first husband, Neil Joseph Tardio, Jr., a television commercial producer, on June 8, 1991, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Hope, New Jersey.^[8] The couple divorced in 1995.

She married her second husband, actor David Duchovny, on May 6, 1997, after a nine-week courtship.

Their first child, daughter Madelaine West Duchovny, was born on April 24, 1999, in Southern California,^[9] and their second, son Kyd Miller Duchovny, was born on June 15, 2002, in Los Angeles. The family lives in Malibu, California.

On Wednesday, October 15, 2008, Leoni and Duchovny confirmed that they have been separated "for several months". The media attributed the separation to both Duchovny's much publicized sexual addiction^[10] and also Duchovny's discovery of Leoni's relationship with actor Billy Bob Thornton^[11]

Filmography

References

External links

• Téa Leoni at the Internet Movie Database
• Téa Leoni at TV.com