Danielle Harris
Harris attending Adventure Con 2008
Born	Danielle Andrea Harris (1977-06-01) June 1, 1977 (age 35) Queens, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, director
Years active	1985–present

Danielle Andrea Harris (born June 1, 1977) is an American film and television actress, best known as a scream queen for her multiple horror film roles, four of them in the Halloween series:^[1] in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers as Jamie Lloyd and in the new version of Halloween and Halloween II as Annie Brackett.

Aside from her scream queen reputation, Harris is known as a former child star whose career has grown to include various independent films as well as such mainstream hits as Marked for Death, The Last Boy Scout, Daylight and the aforementioned Halloween films. She is also noted for her voice acting, which includes the complete TV series run of The Wild Thornberrys (1998–2004, as Debbie Thornberry) and Father of the Pride (2004–05, as Sierra).

Early life[link]

Harris was born in Queens, New York, and raised by her single mother, Fran.^[2][3] Harris's family moved to Port Orange, Florida and there she attended Spruce Creek Elementary School.

Career[link]

Early beginnings[link]

Harris still lived in Florida, when winning a children's beauty contest found her in New York. Moving back there, Harris began her professional career by appearing in television commercials while maintaining an A average at PS 117 and PS 232 in Queens, New York.^{[citation needed]} Her first acting role followed in 1985, when she made her debut as little Samantha 'Sami' Garretson on ABC's One Life to Live, a part she would continue to play for three years.

[edit] Debut in the Halloween series

In 1988, at age ten, Harris auditioned and was chosen (beating out Melissa Joan Hart) for the part of Jamie Lloyd, Michael Myers's niece and intended victim, in the movie Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. This was Harris's feature film debut. Although Halloween 4 involved older teenagers in standard slasher fashion, much of it was devoted to little Jamie and her plight as she was pursued by Michael, being his last remaining relative. One year later, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers was released, with Harris reprising her role. The focus on Jamie was even greater, showing her recovery from her earlier trauma and her decision to confront her uncle.

The character of Jamie returned in 1995 for the following entry, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers but Harris did not participate due to disagreements regarding the changes to her character on the script. Also, an agreement for her requested salary could not be reached.^[4] Instead, J. C. Brandy played the older Jamie, only for the character to be killed off early in the film.

Other young actress work[link]

Following her initial Halloween appearances, various other youth roles were played by Harris on film, some of them as daughter or niece to renowned action stars. Credits during this time include Marked for Death (1990) alongside Steven Seagal, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) with Christina Applegate, The Last Boy Scout (1991) alongside Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans, Free Willy (1993), Daylight (1996) alongside Sylvester Stallone, Wish Upon a Star (1996) portraying two body-swapping characters along with Katherine Heigl, and her first horror film since her Halloween beginnings, Urban Legend (1998). During this period she also began to build upon her various television credits, with a recurring role on the sitcom Roseanne during the 1992–93 season (as Roseanne's teenage neighbor Molly), plus special appearances on Boy Meets World, Diagnosis: Murder, Charmed and ER, among others; she was a supporting player for the two-year run of CBS drama That's Life, the voice of Debbie Thornberry on the animated series The Wild Thornberrys, which ran for five seasons, and the voice of Sierra, the adolescent white lioness on the CGI-animated sitcom Father of the Pride. One of her characters originating from television, Debbie Thornberry, has otherwise featured in theatrical films: the animated The Wild Thornberrys Movie and Rugrats Go Wild.

[edit] Return to Halloween

Harris made her eventual return to the Halloween franchise to portray a different character, chosen to re-create Michael Myers's original babysitter victim Annie Brackett for Rob Zombie's Halloween, a 2007 re-imagining of John Carpenter's 1978 original. In this film, she appeared nude in a sex scene and afterwards as she faced off against Michael Myers, the first such turn in her career. She stated "[It] is something that I wanted to do because everyone's like, 'Oh, she's little Jamie. She's 14.' And it's like, no, actually, I'm 30. It's something that I've never done before."^[5] Also, whereas Annie is the first of the teenage friends to die in the earlier version, in the remake she is tortured but lives. This let Harris return to play the character in Rob Zombie's Halloween II, released in 2009. In the sequel, her part was expanded from the previous film and once again had her meeting Michael Myers in a violent encounter.

Further scream queen and independent film roles[link]

Her more recent work, next to the newer Halloween entries, includes the films Debating Robert Lee, Race You to the Bottom (an Outfest prizewinner) and the Halloween-themed Left for Dead, as well as an appearance in the music video for the song "The Bleeding", by Five Finger Death Punch. She also starred alongside Lance Henriksen, Bill Moseley, AFI's Davey Havok, and Battlestar Galactica's Nicki Clyne in the Illustrated Film series Godkiller. For Fearnet, she hosted Route 666: America's Scariest Home Haunts.

Harris has further continued to expand her horror and fantastic film credits. Her films Godkiller and Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet saw DVD release by the time Fear Clinic, a Fearnet original web series featuring Harris as well as Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, and Lisa Wilcox, made its debut the week of Halloween 2009, and her own upcoming horror resources website, horrorgal.com, was announced.^[6] She can also be seen as Felicia Freeze in the comedic superhero film Super Capers, and alongside Robert Patrick in The Black Waters of Echo's Pond.^[7] Beginning with 2010's Hatchet II, Harris has taken over the leading role of Marybeth in the Hatchet series, after Tamara Feldman declined to reprise her character.^[8][9][10] Some of Harris's subsequent genre credits include Jim Mickle's second feature film^[11] the vampire/post-apocalyptic epic Stake Land,^[12] Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer, Chromeskull and Michael Biehn's The Victim, in addition to providing the voice and basis for a computer-animated Barbara in Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D, director Zebediah de Soto's prequel/re-telling of George A. Romero's 1968 original.^[13] She is set to star in William Forsythe's directorial debut, the vampire film New Blood.^[14] Harris's own directorial debut is the horror comedy Among Friends, in which she also makes an appearance.^[15]

In 2010, Danielle Harris was identified as 'horror's reigning scream queen' by the NY Daily News.^[16] She has provided the cover feature for such horror/glamour publications as Girls and Corpses and Gorezone magazine,^[17][18] as well as a subject for the photo-book The Bloody Best Project.^[19]

In 2011, Harris won the Best Actress award at the Shockfest Film Festival, for her starring role in the short Nice Guys Finish Last.^[20]

Personal life[link]

Harris is Jewish.^[21] She has a sister, Ashley.^[22] Fellow actors Harris had been in a romantic relationship with include Michael Rosenbaum and Corin Nemec.^[23]

Stalking incident[link]

In 1995, Harris was stalked by an obsessed fan, Christopher Small, who wrote letters threatening to kill her. Small was later arrested after bringing a shotgun and a teddy bear to her home. On January 29, 2007, Harris appeared on an episode of The Dr. Phil Show, sharing her experience with other affected people.^[24] The stalker was obsessed with Molly, her character on the TV show Roseanne. In October 2009, Harris was granted a restraining order against Small, who began sending her messages on Twitter.^[25]

Filmography[link]