- published: 18 Jul 2011
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Alison A. Elliott (born 19 May 1970) is an American actress.
Elliott was born in San Francisco, CA, the daughter of Barbara, a teacher of nursing, and Bob Elliott, a computer executive. She moved with her family to Tokyo, Japan when she was 4 years old, and then moved back to San Francisco when she was 8, where she later attended an arts high school. At 14, her modeling career began, and in 1989, she moved to Los Angeles to star as a teen-aged model on the TV sitcom Living Dolls (1989).[citation needed]
She is perhaps best known for her roles in films, such as Underneath (1994), The Spitfire Grill (1996), The Wings of the Dove (1997), and Birth (2004). She also had one of the leading roles in the BBC production, Buccaneers, 1995. In the 2007 western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Elliot plays the memorable role of Martha Bolton, the older sister of Robert Ford.
In addition to her film roles, Elliott has narrated audio books, including Belle Prater's Boy by Ruth White and its sequel The Search for Belle Prater.
Mira Katherine Sorvino (born September 28, 1967) is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Mighty Aphrodite (1995) and is also known for her role as Romy White in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.
Sorvino was born in Tenafly, New Jersey. Her mother, Lorraine Ruth Davis, is a drama therapist for Alzheimer's disease patients and a former actress, and her father, Paul Sorvino, is a character actor and director. She has two siblings, Michael and Amanda. Sorvino is of Italian descent on her father's side.
At a young age, Sorvino wrote and acted in backyard plays with her childhood friend Hope Davis, in theater productions at Dwight-Englewood School, and at Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude in East Asian Studies in 1989. She also helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard's co-ed a cappella groups in 1985. Her solo piece was Yazoo's "Only You".[citation needed]
Sorvino spent the next three years in New York City, trying to make a name for herself as an actress.[citation needed] When the 1993 film Amongst Friends entered pre-production, she was hired as third assistant director, then was promoted to casting director, then to assistant producer, and was finally offered a lead role. Positive reviews opened doors for her.[citation needed]
Rya Kihlstedt (born July 23, 1970) is an American actress.
Kihlstedt was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a 1991 graduate of Skidmore College in Theatre Arts.
She is of Swedish descent. She has two children (Ava Emanuelle born 1999, and Giovanni born 2001) with her actor husband Gil Bellows.
She is the sister of Oakland-based violinist, Carla Kihlstedt.