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Sherilyn Fenn

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Sherilyn Fenn (born Sheryl Ann Fenn February 1, 1965 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American actress, of Italian, Irish, French and Hungarian descent. Born into a family of musicians (her mother is keyboard player Arlene Quatro, her aunt is singer Suzi Quatro and her grandfather Art Quatro is a jazz musician), she travelled a lot with her mother and two older brothers before the family settled in Los Angeles when she was 17. She didn't want to start with a new school again and began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

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Sherilyn Fenn


Acting Career

Sherilyn Fenn began her career with a number of B-movies including teen-fantasy movie The Wraith (1986) and erotic Two Moon Junction (1988). She was first noticed in the 1985 teen-comedy Just One of the Guys, where she tries to seduce disguised-as-a-man Joyce Hyser. She won her most outstanding role and made an indelible impression when she was cast by David Lynch and Mark Frost as sexy dreamy Audrey Horne, toxic beauty from Twin Peaks who falls for Kyle MacLachlan, plays with Dana Ashbrook, seduces Billy Zane and tries to solve Laura Palmer's murder by knotting cherry stems with her tongue. After shooting Twin Peaks' pilot episode, David Lynch gave her a small but impressive part in Wild at Heart (1990) as a girl injured in a car wreck, walking with a windshield through her head on Nicolas Cage's and Laura Dern's way.

After two nominations (Emmy and Golden Globe) and a pictorial in Playboy magazine, she was propelled to stardom and was one of America's newest sex symbol. She imposed her old Hollywood stunning beauty (with her lily-white skin, vertiginous boomerang eyebrows, beauty mark next to her left eye, topaz eyes and beautiful brown hair) in many independent films. In 1992 she played a sad and lonely country wife in Gary Sinise's film adaptation of Of Mice and Men opposite John Malkovich, and made a good imitation of Marilyn Monroe in John Mackenzie's Ruby as stripper Candy Cane DuJean alongside Danny Aiello and Arliss Howard. She also starred in Diary of a Hitman (1991, directed by her acting coach Roy London, as a mother determined to protect her child from hitman Forest Whitaker), romantic comedy Three of Hearts (1992, as Kelly Lynch's and Stephen Baldwin's love interest), and Carl Reiner's spoof detective movie Fatal Instinct (1993, opposite Armand Assante and Sean Young). In 1993, she gives an impressive performance in the much-waited, controversial but disappointing Boxing Helena as a narcissistic Venus of Milo, amputated and imprisoned by desperately in love Julian Sands, directed by Lynch's daughter Jennifer Chambers Lynch. In 1995 she portrayed actress Elizabeth Taylor in NBC's Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story.

Following that, she alternated TV movies and such small independent films as romantic comedies Lovelife (1996, directed by Tru Calling's creator Jon Harmon Feldman, opposite Jon Tenney, Saffron Burrows, Matt Letscher, Carla Gugino) and Just Write (1997, opposite Jeremy Piven). In 1998, being tired of Hollywood, she shot in the UK Darkness Falls, in which she gives a good performance as Tim Dutton's unhappy wife, sequestered by despaired Ray Winstone who tries to solve his wife's death.

Back in a TV series she stars as Billie Frank, an ex-soap actress who gets drunk and strips in bars, sleeps with the wrong men and wants to become a writer, in Showtime's sitcom Rude Awakening (1998-2001) opposite Lynn Redgrave, Jonathan Penner and Mario Van Peebles. In 1999 she starred in her friend Adrian Pasdar's debut feature as director, film noir Cement (written by Farscape's Justin Monjo) as jealous bad cop Chris Penn's too beautiful wife, opposite Jeffrey Wright and Henry Czerny. She had a small role in the critically acclaimed The United States of Leland (2003) as a woman who represents happiness and joie de vivre to Ryan Gosling. She also plays a beautiful criminal in Swindle (2002) opposite Tom Sizemore and co-stars in Lesser of Three Evils (2005) alongside Ho Sung Pak and Peter Greene.

Sherilyn Fenn guest-starred in numerous TV series like 21 Jump Street (1987, opposite her then-fiancé Johnny Depp) or HBO's Tales from the Crypt (1995, episode "You, murderer") in an episode directed by Robert Zemeckis, as Humphrey Bogart's lover who fights Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow. In Friends she is Matthew Perry's wooden-legged girlfriend (1997, episode "The one with Phoebe's ex-partner"), she is duplicated in The Outer Limits (2001, episode "Replica") and she plays a manipulative woman in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2002, episode "Deception") opposite Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay. She also had recurrent roles in WB's Dawson's Creek and Gilmore Girls, and Fox's Boston Public.


Personal Life

In October 1990, Sherilyn Fenn made the cover for Rolling Stone magazine (along with Mädchen Amick and Lara Flynn Boyle) and in December 1990, she made the cover for Playboy magazine. People magazine chose her as one of the 50 most beautiful women in the world in 1991 and FHM magazine chose her as one of the 100 sexiest women in the world in 1995.

Sherilyn Fenn dated Prince and was engaged to Johnny Depp. She also dated photographer Barry Hollywood. She married musician G. Toulouse Holliday in 1994 (the couple has a son, Myles, born in late 1993) but the marriage came to an end in 1997.


Awards


Selected Filmography


Personal Quotes

  • "Women do feel like they're in a box. Society, Hollywood, some men... they want to wrap women up in a neat little package."
  • "I'm honest. I say what I feel. I try to be tactful, but I can't not say what I feel. I have a really big problem with that."
  • "I've never wanted to do the same thing twice. If a script doesn't surprise me in some way, I simply can't commit to the project."
  • "I was told once that I didn't play the Hollywood game, and that's why I wasn't a big star. What they meant when they said that was that I don't go to parties, and when I go to an audition and I don't like the script, they know it. I don't flirt and I don't play the people that I'm meeting with. In the next breath, this person said to me, 'When you're passionate about a role, there's nobody that can touch you, but you have to learn to do this also...' But I don't know how to sit there and pretend I love something when I don't!"


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