Right from her very childhood Elisabeth Shue was tomboyish since she was surrounded with boys all time and this made her more interested in kicking volley ball then palying with dolls. Elisabeth Shue was born October 6, 1963 in Wilmington, Delaware. She was raised in South Orange, New Jersey with her three brothers. Their parents ( mother, a bank executive, and her father, a real-estate developer and former attorney ) split up when Elisabeth was in grade four.
The innocent looking girl had everyone fooled, since she was really not as angelic as she seemed. Thanks to her wholesome appearance, she saw and learned that she could get away with anything.
After graduating high school she enrolled at Wellesley College. Elisabeth says that she welcomed the all-woman school because it afforded her scholastic isolation from booze and boys. However, by her junior year, she began to look for ways to supplement her income as well as her social life. She followed a friends example and pursued work as an actress in television commercials. She impressed producers with her athletic abilities in her first audition and was hired to do cartwheels and flips to promote a Florida theme park. She went on work in commercials for DeBeers diamonds, Burger King, and Hellmann’s mayonnaise.
Her acting career was officially launched in 1984, when she landed a television role in the short lived series "Call to Glory" and her first feature film role, as Ralph Macchio’s girlfriend in "The Karate Kid." Her career in acting seemed to be taking off with a bang but Shue refused to forgo a college education altogether. She earned admission into Harvard University and continues to work towards the completion of her degree in Political Science between film/TV projects.
She then landed the lead as the girl next door in 1987’s "Adventures in Baby-sitting". She went on to star as Tom Cruise’s love interest in "Cocktail" in 1988, the final two installments of the waning "Back to the Future" franchise in 1989 and 1990, "Soapdish" and "The Marrying Man" in 1991. Her presence on-screen was consistently engaging but the roles she was getting didn’t give her much of a chance to explore much depth of character. That changed when director Mike Figgis cast her into "Leaving Las Vegas" as Sera, a prostitute engaged in a tragic love affair wit a suicidal alcoholic played by Nicholas Cage. The low-budget, high-risk project paid off for everyone and the movie won numerous critics awards. Elisabeth’s lightweight image vanished behind her convincing performance and the Academy of Motion Pictures recognized her with a Best Actress nomination.
Her next project was opposite Val Kilmer in "The Saint." Elisabeth role was as the scientist love interest of super-spy Kilmer. This time the budget was significantly larger ($40 million) and so was Shue’s pay check. She was now able to get the roles that sharpened and showed her acting ability. She no longer had to settle for sweet and innocent goody-goody. This was very apparent in her performance as the scheming, adultery-minded wife of a millionaire in the mystery thriller "Palmetto."
In her spare time she enjoys gymnastics, baseball, tennis and her dog, Sonny. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband, producer Davis Guggenheim. Her brother Andrew is also an actor and was in Melrose Place. Word has it we will see Elisabeth teamed with Dustin Hoffman in the adaptation of Edith Wharton’s "The House of Mirth." |
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