Alicia Silverstone

Alicia Silverstone (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).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. 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. 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.Silverstone won several awards for her film performances, including MTV Movie Awards, National Board of Review, Young Artist Awards, and an American Comedy Award. 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. 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.[citation needed] 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, the film grossed $238,207,122 worldwide. Silverstone's turn as Batgirl was not well received, and won her a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress. 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. 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. 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 '90s she was ranked #5. Topsocialite.com listed her as the 3rd Sexiest woman of the '90s.

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. In 2002, she made her Broadway debut alongside Kathleen Turner and Jason Biggs in The Graduate. 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 canceled after 11 episodes. Silverstone later acknowledged that she hates the trappings of fame, saying, "Fame is not anything I wish on anyone. You start acting because you love it. Then success arrives, and suddenly you're on show". After the cancellation of Miss Match in 2003, Silverstone did a pilot with Fox called Queen B, in which she 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 spinoff 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 appeared in the direct-to-video film Silence Becomes You. In 2006, Silverstone starred in an ABC pilot called Pink Collar, in which her character 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 appeared in the Hallmark Hall of Fame made-for-TV movie Candles on Bay Street, based on the book by Cathie Pelletier. Silverstone continued her theatre work, next appearing in David Mamet's Boston Marriage and Speed-the-Plow. In 2008, she filmed another ABC pilot alongside Megan Mullally called Bad Mother's Handbook and made a cameo appearance in the comedy film Tropic Thunder. In early 2009, Silverstone starred in the world premiere of Donald Margulies's Time Stands Still at the Geffen Playhouse LA. The play focuses on a longtime couple and journalistic team who return to New York from an extended stint in the war-torn Middle East. In a review, Silverstone was described as "a formidable stage presence who creates sparks whenever she performs".

She reprised her role in Time Stands Still alongside Laura Linney in the New York production of the play on Broadway, which premiered on January 28, 2010, directed by Daniel Sullivan, who described Silverstone as "a breath of fresh air." The play received good reviews with the New York Times praising Silverstone, saying she "brings warmth, actorly intelligence and delicate humour." Silverstone will next appear in the teen romance Homework, which will premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and also as the adoptive mother of a 12-year old African American girl who enters a local butter sculpture competition in a small Iowa town, alongside Jennifer Garner, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde and Ashley Greene in Butter. The movie is said to be inspired by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's battle to secure the Democratic nomination for president. She is also set to appear alongside Sigourney Weaver and Krysten Ritter in director Amy Heckerling's vampire film, Vamps, playing one of two vampires who fall in love and face a choice that could jeopardise their immortality. She was offered the role after Heckerling came to see her in Time Stands Still.

Silverstone married her longtime boyfriend, rock musician (S.T.U.N.) and basketball coach Christopher Jarecki, 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. They got engaged about a year before their marriage and Jarecki presented Silverstone with an engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother. She intends to have children in the future. Silverstone and Jarecki live in an eco-friendly Los Angeles house complete with solar panels and an organic vegetable garden. She bought the house, shared with a "menagerie of rescued dogs," in 1996. In 2009, Silverstone released The Kind Diet, a guide to vegan nutrition, and launched its associated website The Kind Life. The Kind Diet has topped the New York Times best sellers list. The book was mostly ghostwritten by nutritionist Jessica Porter. On January 14, 2011, it was announced that Silverstone and Jarecki are expecting their first child.