Look up Lauren in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Lauren may be a name or surname. The name's meaning may be "Laurel tree", "sweet of honor" or "victory of wisdom".

Given name[link]

• Lauren Alaina (born 1994), American singer and former 'American Idol' 10 contestant
• Lauren Albanese (born 1989), American professional tennis player
• Lauren Anderson (born 1980), American model and Playboy Playmate
• Lauren Bacall (born 1924), American actress
• Lauren Barlow, member of Christian rock band Barlow Girl
• Lauren Boquette (born 1992), current singer for the band SiX
• Lauren Bosworth (born 1986), also known as Lo Bosworth, American appearing in the reality TV shows Laguna Beach and The Hills
• Lauren Boyle (born 1987), New Zealand swimmer
• Lauren Brooke, author
• Lauren Bush-Lauren (born 1984), American model, niece to former President George W. Bush, daughter-in-law to fashion designer Ralph Lauren
• Lauren Cheney (born 1987), American soccer player
• Lauren Child (born 1965), British author and illustrator
• Lauren Christy, English-born singer and songwriter
• Lauren Cohan (born 1982), American actress
• Lauren Cohn, newsreader
• Lauren Collins (born 1986), Canadian actress best known for her role on Degrassi: The Next Generation
• Lauren Colthorpe (born 1985), Australian Association Football player
• Lauren Conrad (born 1986), (, American reality television star known for her role on The Hills
• Lauren Crace (born 1986), British actress
• Lauren Embree (born 1991), American tennis player
• Lauren Etame Mayer (born 1977), footballer
• Lauren Faust (born 1974), Emmy-nominated American animator and creator of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
• Lauren Gale (1917–1996), American basketball player
• Lauren German (born 1978), actress
• Lauren Gold (born 1980), English fashion model and actress
• Lauren Graham (born 1967), American actress
• Lauren Greenfield (born 1966), American artist / documentary photographer
• Lauren Harries (born 1978), child actor
• Lauren Hewitt (born 1978), Australian track and field
• Lauren Hill (disambiguation), Playboy playmate
• Lauren Hoffman (born 1977), American singer
• Lauren Holly (born 1963), American actress
• Lauren Hutton (born 1943), former model
• Lauren Jackson (born 1981), Australian basketball player
• Lauren Jones (born 1982), American actress
• Lauren Koslow (born 1953), actress
• Lauren Lanning (born 1983), Miss Texas 2006
• Lauren Lappin (born 1984), American softball player
• Lauren Laverne (born 1978), British disc jockey
• Lauren London (born 1984), American actress known for her role in ATL
• Lauren Luke (born 1981), English makeup artist and Internet Mogul
• Lauren McAvoy (born 1987), British fashion model and winner of cycle 3 of Britain's Next Top Model
• Lauren MacMullan (born 1971), animation director best known for her work on King of the Hill
• Lauren Maltby (born 1984), American actress
• Lauren Mitchell (born 1991), gymnast
• Lauren Myracle (born 1969), author
• Lauren Nelson (born 1986), Miss American 2007
• Lauren Keyana "Keke" Palmer (born 1993), American actress
• Lauren Phoenix (born 1979), Canadian female porn star
• Lauren Samuels (born 1988), British actress & singer
• Lauren Sánchez (born 1969), American news anchor
• Lauren Shuler Donner (born 1949), American producer
• Lauren Slater (born 1963), Writer and psychologist
• Lauren Socha (born 1990), British actress
• Lauren Lee Smith (born 1980), Canadian actress
• Lauren Stamile (born 1976), American actress
• Lauren Tewes (born 1954), American actress best known for her role in TV's The Love Boat
• Lauren Tom (born 1961), American actress best known for her role in The Joy Luck Club
• Lauren Vélez (born 1964), Puerto Rican actress
• Lauren Wenger (born 1984), water polo player
• Lauren Weinstein (activist), activist concerned with matters involving technology
• Lauren Weinstein (comics) (born 1975), American comic book artist
• Lauren Wood, American singer
• Lauren Woodland (born 1977), American actress
• Lauren Young (born 1993), actress

Fictional characters[link]

• Lauren Andrews, in Waterloo Road
• Lauren Fenmore Baldwin, in 'The Young and the Restless
• Lauren Branning, in EastEnders
• Lauren Cooper, in The Catherine Tate Show
• Lauren Frost (born 1985), heroine in the series Bloom
• Lauren Reed, in the television show Alias
• Lauren "Lo" Ridgemount, in the Canadian animated series Stoked
• Lauren Valentine, in Hollyoaks
• Lauren Waters, in Britannia High
• Lauren Zizes, in Glee
• Lauren Lewis, in the Canadian television series Lost Girl

Other uses[link]

• Penn, North Dakota, also known as Lauren, an unincorporated community
• Lauren (perfume), a Ralph Lauren fragrance

See also[link]

• Laura (given name)
• Laurin (disambiguation)
• Laureano (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Troian Avery Bellisario (born October 28, 1985) is an American actress. She currently stars as Spencer Hastings in the ABC Family series Pretty Little Liars.

Career[link]

Bellisario made her acting debut in the 1988 film Last Rites at the age of three.^[1] From 1990 to 2007, she guest starred on Quantum Leap, Tequila and Bonetti, JAG, First Monday and NCIS, television series that were produced by her father Donald Bellisario. In 1998, she co-starred with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in the film Billboard Dad. Beginning in 2006, Bellisario began appearing in a number of independent short films namely, Unspoken, Archer House and Intersect. In November 2009, Bellisario was cast as Spencer Hastings in the TV series Pretty Little Liars based on the book series of the same name by Sara Shepard.^[2]

Personal life[link]

Bellisario graduated from the University of Southern California.^[3] She is of African, English, French, Italian Danish and Serbian descent^[4][5] Bellisario is in a relationship with actor Patrick J. Adams.^[6]

Filmography[link]

Awards[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Troian Bellisario at the Internet Movie Database
• Troian Bellisario on Twitter

Jennifer Beals
Beals at a fan convention for The L Word in November 2008
Born	(1963-12-19) December 19, 1963 (age 48) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Occupation	Actress Model (former)
Years active	1980–present
Spouse	Alexandre Rockwell (m. 1986–1996; divorced) Ken Dixon (m. 1998–present; 1 child)

Jennifer Beals (born December 19, 1963) is an American actress and a former teen model. She is known for her roles as Alexandra "Alex" Owens in the 1983 film Flashdance, and as Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series The L Word. She earned an NAACP Image Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for the former. She has appeared in more than 50 films.

Early life[link]

Beals was born on the southside of Chicago,^[1] the daughter of Jeanne (née Anderson), an elementary school teacher, and Alfred Beals, who owned grocery stores.^[2][3] She is biracial,^[4] as her father was African American and her mother is Irish American.^[5] She has two brothers, Bobby and Gregory.^[6] Her father died when Beals was nine years old,^[7] and her mother married Edward Cohen in 1981.^[8] Beals has said her biracial heritage had some effect on her, as she "always lived sort of on the outside", with an idea "of being the other in society".^[5] She got her first job at age 13 at an ice cream store, using her height at the time (she is now nearly 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)), to convince her boss she was 16.^[7]

Beals was inspired to become an actress by two events: doing a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof and seeing Balm in Gilead with Joan Allen while volunteer-ushering at the Steppenwolf Theatre.^[9]

She graduated from the progressive Francis W. Parker School.^[10] Beals also was chosen to attend the elite Goodman Theatre Young People's Drama Workshop.^[11] Beals attended Yale University, receiving a B.A. in American literature in 1987;^[12] she deferred a term so she could film Flashdance.^[10] While at Yale, Beals was a resident of Morse College.^[12]

Career[link]

Film[link]

Beals in Sweden, July 1983

Beals had a minor role in the 1980 film My Bodyguard,^[13] then came to fame with her starring part in Flashdance. The third-highest grossing U.S. film of 1983, Flashdance is the story of 18-year-old Alex, a welder by day and exotic dancer by night, whose dream is to be accepted someday at an illustrious school of dance. Beals was cast for this key role while still a student at Yale. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and the film received an Academy Award for Best Song. Many of Beals' elaborate dance moves were actually performed by stunt double Marine Jahan.^[14]

After she filmed Flashdance, she resumed her studies, making only one film during that time: playing the titular character The Bride with singer-actor Sting, a gothic horror film loosely based on the 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein^[15] shot during her summer break,^[16] and also appearing in the Cinderella episode of Faerie Tale Theatre.^[13] She was asked by Joel Schumacher to do St. Elmo's Fire but turned it down preferring to stay at Yale.^[17]

Starring opposite Nicolas Cage, the actress portrays a lusty and thirsty vampire in 1989's Vampire's Kiss.

In 1995, Beals and Denzel Washington co-starred in Devil in a Blue Dress, a period film based on a Walter Mosley novel featuring L.A. private detective, Easy Rawlins. Beals plays a biracial woman passing for white. That same year she appeared with Tim Roth in two segments of the four-story anthology Four Rooms, one of which was directed by her then-husband, Alexandre Rockwell.

Rockwell had previously directed her in the 1992 independent film In the Soup, which was a Grand Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival.^[18] In 2003, she played one of the sequestered jury members in the film adaptation of Runaway Jury.

She had a leading role in 2006's The Grudge 2, sequel to the hit horror film of two years earlier. In 2010, Beals reunited with Denzel Washington in the post-Apocalyptic action drama, The Book of Eli, where she played a blind woman who is the mother of Mila Kunis' character and a servant of Gary Oldman's.^[19]

Television[link]

In 1992, she appeared in 2000 Malibu Road as attorney Perry Quinn. It was her first ongoing television series; she said she had been leery as she previously had not "found a character I wanted to live with for several years".^[11]

Beals made a brief cameo in the final episode of Frasier. In 2007, she appeared in the small TV drama My Name Is Sarah, in which she plays Sarah Winston, a sober woman who joins Alcoholics Anonymous to conduct research for her book but finds herself falling in love with a recovering alcoholic and - as a result - having to deal with her original deception in joining the group.^{[citation needed]}

Beals starred in Showtime Network's The L Word, where she played Bette Porter, an Ivy League educated lesbian. At Beals' request, Bette was made biracial, enabling Pam Grier's Kit Porter character to become Bette's half-sister.^[20] She initially researched the part more in that the woman is the director of an art museum rather than a lesbian;^[21] "I was much more obsessed by the work that Bette did, because she was so obsessed by the work that she did."^[22] The series ran for six seasons and ended in March 2009.

She also appears alongside Tim Roth in Lie To Me, as Cal Lightman's ex-wife, Zoe Landau.

Beals is the female lead in Fox's TV drama The Chicago Code. Her character Teresa Colvin is Chicago's first female police superintendent.^[23] The series was canceled after its first season.^[24]

Beals turned down an offer to appear on Dancing with the Stars, saying: "I am not a dancer. They asked me and I said 'no.' You could back up a truck to my door filled with cash and I wouldn't do it."^[25]

Personal life[link]

Beals was married to Alexandre Rockwell from 1986 to 1996.^[5] In 1998, she married Ken Dixon, a Canadian entrepreneur.^[26] On October 18, 2005, Beals gave birth to their daughter. She is also stepmother to Dixon's two children from a previous marriage.^[27]

Beals has described herself as a "spiritual person".^[28] She has expressed interest in the Holy Bible, Roman Catholicism, and is a practicing Buddhist.^[29][30]

She has been a vocal advocate for gay rights saying "I think after playing Bette Porter on The L Word for six years I felt like an honorary member of the community."^[31] Beals was a Celebrity Grand Marshal at the 2006 San Francisco Pride Parade.^[32]

She is a photographer, who has had shows of her work under her married name, Dixon.^[33] She has a book about her time on The L Word featuring her own photographs.^[34] In 1989, she spent some time in Haiti photographing the elections.^[35]

In 2010, Beals served as the Grand Marshal of the McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago.^[36] Beals spoke about two charities that she holds dear in her heart, the Matthew Shepard Foundation and Pablove.^[37]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]