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When she first packed her bags and
hit the Sunset Strip in search of cinema's Promised Land, the best gig
actress Heather Graham could find was playing the girl of Corey Haim's
dreams in the angst-riddled yukfest License to Drive. After spending
several years as a very minor glimmer in Hollywood's galaxy of stars,
however, she proved herself far more than just another heavenly body, with
a knockout performance in writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997
paean to porn, Boogie Nights. As the ebullient Rollergirl, a skin-flick
starlet who willingly strips down to her treasured skates, but nary a
stitch further, Graham sported the only hardware in the movie more
striking than the 13-inch prosthetic penis brandished by co-star Mark
Wahlberg. She cemented her It-girl status with a prominent cameo in the
hip slasher sequel Scream 2, and a lip-locking, tongue-tangling smooch
with Friends hunk Matt LeBlanc in the big-screen remake of Lost in Space.
Quite apart from the conclusions one might draw based on her unfettered
watershed Boogie Nights role, Graham was raised in a straitlaced,
staunchly Catholic household: her parents once encouraged their daughter
to consider entering a convent. The eldest of two children, Graham was
born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up in different cities across the
U.S. where her father's FBI job took the family. Among her fondest
memories of childhood are the hours she spent watching The Partridge
Family, The Brady Bunch, and Speed Racer; as she later explained to one
interviewer, "I had a huge crush on Speed Racer." Graham gained her
first-ever acting experience playing Dorothy in a stage production of The
Wizard of Oz, and she pursued acting through her high school years at
Agoura High in Southern California. By the time she graduated, her senior
class had become sufficiently convinced of her abilities to vote her "most
talented," and her parents had begun to drive her to Los Angeles for
auditions.
Eventually, Graham decided it was time to leave the nest, and she migrated
to L.A. in order to more fully engage in the time-honored cinematic
tradition of juggling odd jobs and waiting for her big break; her most
notable bread-winning gig during this period was working as an usher at
the Hollywood Bowl. Though License to Drive, released in 1988, marked her
feature-film debut, her second movie, Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy,
would prove the highlight of Graham's early career. Van Sant cast her in
the film as a strung-out teenage drifter taken in by a trio of
road-tripping, shoplifting junkies, and Graham sank her teeth into the
part. Though the critics crowed and the movie became an art-house
blockbuster, Graham languished in the shadow of co-star Matt Dillon, and
the next couple of years found her working so sporadically that she
finally enrolled at UCLA and took on an English major. By her own
admission a peerless procrastinator, the would-be co-ed's interest in
academia had played itself out by the end of her sophomore year, and she
dropped out of school to fully resume acting.
Graham's career rebirth got off to a respectable start in 1990, when she
made a small appearance alongside Kevin Kline in the Lawrence
Kasdan-directed infidelity satire I Love You to Death; that same year,
David Lynch cast her in a recurring role in his seminal TV series, Twin
Peaks. Her next several movies, however, were little-seen flops, including
Lynch's critically-excoriated adaptation of his own hit television series,
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and the ill-advised period musical Shout,
which also featured a pre-comeback John Travolta and a pre-Pitt Gwyneth
Paltrow.
Perhaps Graham's most intriguing performance during this period came
off-camera, when she engaged in a six-month-long May-December love affair
with actor James Woods, whom she'd met on the set of 1992's Diggstown. By
one account, Woods, who was exactly twice her age at the time, first took
a shine to his fresh-faced co-star when he spotted her thumbing through a
dog-eared copy of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, a prized possession
from her days at UCLA. Exactly what made the attraction mutual even Graham
ended up at a loss to express; as she later recalled, "That was one of
those relationships you look back on and say, 'What was I doing?' He's a
very interesting man, but it's hard to imagine I dated him."
Though she rebounded somewhat with small roles in the indie hits Six
Degree of Separation (Will Smith's debut feature film) and Mrs. Parker and
the Vicious Circle, it wasn't until 1996 that Graham got her next
substantial break. Fellow Milwaukee native and buddy Jon Favreau offered
her a small role in Swingers, a breezy little comedy he'd written about
the trials of young, unemployed actors looking for love. Swingers became
one of the biggest surprise hits of 1996, and Graham, cast as the
dream-girl who rescues Favreau from a run of bum luck and failed
relationships at the end of the movie, became a hot commodity. She landed
a potent one-two punch the next year with Boogie Nights and Scream 2, and
1998's Lost in Space continued her winning streak. She nabbed a starring
role in one of summer 1999's most wildly anticipated sequels, Austin
Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and hot on its heels came Steve Martin's
sharpley observed Hollywood satire Bowfinger, in which Graham played an
exceedingly opportunistic starlet.
In her personal life, Graham recently ended a long-standing relationship
with actor Ed Burns. Though she's abandoned her Catholic roots, she
regularly practices Transcendental Meditation, and in addition to her film
work, has a modeling contract with Emanuel Ungaro. |
|
Buy Borrow Steal (2007) ....
Georgina
A West Texas Children's Story (2007) .... Cassie's Aunt
Adrift in Manhattan (2007) .... Rose Phipps
Gray Matters (2006) .... Gray
Bobby (2006) .... Angela
The OH in Ohio (2006) (uncredited) .... Justine, Sex Shop Clerk
"Emily's Reasons Why Not" .... Emily Sanders (6 episodes, 2006)
- Why Not to Date Your Gynocologist (2006) TV Episode .... Emily
Sanders
- Pilot (2006) TV Episode .... Emily Sanders
- Why Not to Date a Twin (2006) TV Episode .... Emily Sanders
- Why Not to Hire a Cute Male Assistant (2006) TV Episode .... Emily
Sanders
- Why Not to Invite Your Vacation Date Home (2006) TV Episode ....
Emily Sanders
(1 more)
Broken (2006/I) .... Hope
Mary (2005/I) .... Elizabeth Younger
Cake (2005/I) .... Pippa McGee
"Scrubs" .... Dr. Molly Clock (9 episodes, 2004-2005)
- My Best Laid Plans (2005) TV Episode .... Dr. Molly Clock
- My Last Chance (2004) TV Episode .... Dr. Molly Clock
- My Common Enemy (2004) TV Episode .... Dr. Molly Clock
- My Cake (2004) TV Episode .... Dr. Molly Clock
- Her Story (2004) TV Episode .... Dr. Molly Clock
(4 more)
EverQuest II (2004) (VG) (voice) .... Antonia Bayle, Queen of Qeynos
Blessed (2004) .... Samantha Howard
"Arrested Development" .... Beth Baerly (1 episode, 2004)
- Shock and Aww (2004) TV Episode .... Beth Baerly
Hope Springs (2003) .... Mandy
Anger Management (2003) (uncredited) .... Kendra
The Guru (2002) .... Sharonna
... aka Gourou et les femmes, Le (France)
Killing Me Softly (2002) .... Alice
Alien Love Triangle (2002) .... Elizabeth
From Hell (2001) .... Mary Kelly
Sidewalks of New York (2001) .... Annie Matthews
Say It Isn't So (2001) .... Josephine Wingfield
Committed (2000) .... Joline
... aka Non Stop Girl
"Saturday Night Live" .... Host (1 episode, 1999)
... aka NBC's Saturday Night (USA: first season title)
... aka SNL (USA: informal title)
... aka SNL 25 (USA: alternative title)
... aka Saturday Night (USA: second season title)
... aka Saturday Night Live '80 (USA: sixth season title)
- Episode #25.2 (1999) TV Episode .... Host
Bowfinger (1999) .... Daisy
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) .... Felicity Shagwell
... aka Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me (USA: video title)
"Fantasy Island" .... Jackie (1 episode, 1998)
- Pilot (1998) TV Episode (uncredited) .... Jackie
Lost in Space (1998) .... Dr. Judy Robinson
... aka LS (USA: promotional abbreviation)
Scream 2 (1997) .... 'Stab' Casey
Boogie Nights (1997) .... Brandy 'Rollergirl'
Two Girls and a Guy (1997) .... Carla Bennett
Nowhere (1997) .... Lilith, Shad's Girlfriend
Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story (1996) .... Maggie Bowen
... aka Entertaining Angels (USA: short title)
Swingers (1996) .... Lorraine
Kiss & Tell (1996) .... Susan Pretsel
"The Outer Limits" .... Alicia (1 episode, 1996)
... aka The New Outer Limits (USA: promotional title)
- Resurrection (1996) TV Episode .... Alicia
Let It Be Me (1995) .... Perfumery Saleswoman
... aka Love Dance (UK)
"Fallen Angels" .... Carol Whalen (1 episode, 1995)
- Tomorrow I Die (1995) TV Episode .... Carol Whalen
Toughguy (1995) .... Olive
... aka Evil Never Sleeps (UK: DVD title)
... aka Terrified
Desert Winds (1995) .... Jackie
Don't Do It (1994) .... Suzanna
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) .... Mary Kennedy Taylor
... aka Mrs. Parker and the Round Table
Six Degrees of Separation (1993) .... Elizabeth
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993) .... Cowgirl Heather
The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) .... Mary Addie
... aka Little Man Jo (New Zealand: English title: video title)
Diggstown (1992) .... Emily Forrester
... aka Midnight Sting
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) .... Annie Blackburn
... aka Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (France)
O Pioneers! (1992) (TV) .... Young Alexandra Bergson
Shout (1991) .... Sara Benedict
Guilty as Charged (1991) .... Kimberly
"Twin Peaks" .... Annie Blackburn (6 episodes, 1991)
- Episode #2.21 (1991) TV Episode .... Annie Blackburn
- Episode #2.22 (1991) TV Episode .... Annie Blackburn
- Episode #2.20 (1991) TV Episode .... Annie Blackburn
- Episode #2.19 (1991) TV Episode .... Annie Blackburn
- Episode #2.18 (1991) TV Episode .... Annie Blackburn
(1 more)
I Love You to Death (1990) .... Bridget
Drugstore Cowboy (1989) .... Nadine
Twins (1988/I) (uncredited) .... Young Mary Ann Benedict
License to Drive (1988) .... Mercedes
Student Exchange (1987) (TV) .... Dorrie Ryder
"Growing Pains" .... Cindy / ... (2 episodes, 1987)
- Michaelgate (1987) TV Episode .... Cindy
- Some Enchanted Evening (1987) TV Episode .... Samantha
Mrs. Soffel (1984) (uncredited) .... Factory Girl |
