|
Biography
Juliette Lewis was born on June 21, 1973 in Los Angeles as daughter
of actor Geoffrey Lewis - appeared in many of Clint Eastwood's
films- and graphic designer Glenis Batley. She has 11 siblings and
half-siblings. Even at the age of seven Juliette recognized she
wanted to become an actress. She began her professional acting
career at age of 12. As a precocious teen she became legally
emancipated at the age of 14 in order to gain exemption from
child-labor laws, which mandate that child actors work no more than
five hours a day on school days and that they be supervised by a
guardian. Lewis dropped out of high school at 15 and subsequently
passed the equivalency exam with the help of a tutor. While
adequate in elementary school, she began failing her courses in the
seventh grade because she did not like the 'whole format'. "If
you're forced to study, you're not going to learn." Though she's
always lived responsibly she admitted to some wild years, she was
even arrested of being underage - 15 - in an underground disco. The
mugshot she got from the policeman now hangs posterized in her
house. After leaving school, Lewis moved to Hollywood where she
lived with friend Karen Black for a few months before moving into
an apartment with one of her friends. She had several roles, in
1987 she appeared in 'Home Fires' as Mary and as Kate Ferrel the
13-year old daughter of widower/architect who marries his Central
American housekeeper, an illegal alien, in the poorly received ABC
sitcom 'I Married Dora'. She played in 'Christmas Vacation',
however the first chance to demonstrate her talent was 'Too Young
to Die?', based on the true story of Amanda Sue Bradley, a sexually
abused runaway teen who was the first minor to receive death
penalty. That role not only helped her land her co-star Brad Pitt
(they broke up in 1993, after a nearly four year relationship), it
also led to the role as the narcoleptic sister in the quirky film
"Crooked Hearts". But more importantly, it grabbed the attention of
director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro, so she got the
role of Danielle Bowden in 'Cape Fear'. For her fascinating play at
the age of 17 she was nominated for both the Academy Award and
Golden Globe. Among the films followed 'Cape Fear' were Woddy
Allen's 'Husbands and Wives', 'Romeo Is Bleeding', 'Kalifornia' and
'What's Eating Gilbert Grape' co-starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo
DiCaprio. After playing Gracie in Nora Ephron's comedy 'Mixed Nuts'
she made another hit success as Mallory Knox in 'Natural Born
Killers' in 1994. in 1996 she played Kate Fuller in 'From Dusk Till
Dawn' co-starring Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney. Juliette's
hobbies are collecting antique clothing and walking around with a
tape recorder documenting everyday moments in an effort to capture
reality for future use in her film career. She is a member of the
Church of Scientology and listed as one of twelve "Promising New
Actors of 1991" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 43. Fox N.
Barnley
Biography courtesy of the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com).
|
Juliette Lewis
