Alicia Silverstone

Alicia Silverstone (born October 4, 1976) is an American actress, author, and former fashion model. She first came to widespread attention in music videos for Aerosmith, and is best known for her roles in Hollywood films such as Clueless (1995) and her portrayal of Batgirl in Batman & Robin (1997).

Early life

Silverstone was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of Deirdre "Didi" (nee Radford), a Scottish-born former Pan Am flight attendant, and Monty Silverstone, an English-born real-estate investor and part-time actor. Silverstone was raised in a "traditional Jewish household"; her father, a native of east London, is Jewish, and her mother converted to Conservative Judaism before marriage. Silverstone is the youngest of three children and also has a half-sister, London-based rock singer Kezi Silverstone, and a half-brother, David Silverstone, both from her father's previous marriage. Silverstone attended Crocker Middle School and then San Mateo High School, but did not complete her high school studies. When she was six years old, she began modeling and was subsequently cast in television commercials, the first being for Domino's Pizza. She acquired some early modeling and advertising work and was eventually cast as "dream girl" Jessica on the episode Road Test of The Wonder Years.

Career

Silverstone has won several awards for her film performances including MTV Movie Awards, National Board of Review, and Young Artist Awards. She has been nominated for an Emmy award and a Golden Globe Award. During her career, she turned down several key roles in films, including Dede Truitt in The Opposite of Sex and a role in Scream 3. She was also considered for roles in Scream 2, Bewitched, Little Women and Heartbreakers. She turned down the role of Valerie Malone on Beverly Hills, 90210 in 1994; Tiffani Thiessen was cast instead.

Personal life

Silverstone has dated famous people including Benicio del Toro, Stephen Dorff, Leonardo DiCaprio, Woody Harrelson, Bryan Mashard, Mozie Chabbouth and Adam Sandler. In a January 2000 interview with FHM, she denied that she dated Kenneth Branagh.

Silverstone married her longtime boyfriend, rock musician Christopher Jarecki (lead singer of group S.T.U.N.), in a beachfront ceremony at Lake Tahoe, on June 11, 2005. After meeting outside a movie theater in 1997, the couple dated for eight years prior to their marriage. They got engaged about a year before their marriage and Jarecki presented Silverstone with an engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother.

Silverstone and Jarecki live in an eco-friendly Los Angeles house complete with solar panels and an organic vegetable garden. She bought the house, shared with a "menagerie of rescued dogs," in 1996. She also graced the cover of 944 magazine, promoting vegetarianism. She also teamed up with EcoTools to market a natural line of beauty products and bags made of natural hemp and recycled material. In August 2009, Silverstone appeared on the cover of Health Magazine, promoting her new book and beauty products, where she revealed she liked to swim and garden in the nude. She said that friend Woody Harrelson often went nude and got her into nudism. She also revealed she would like to write a children's book.

Political convictions

Silverstone is noted for being an animal rights and environmental activist. She became a vegan in 1998 after attending an animal rights meeting. "I realized that I was the problem," she told InStyle Home, in spring 2007. "I was an animal lover who was eating animals." In 2004, Silverstone was voted, "Sexiest Female Vegetarian," by PETA. In 2007, Silverstone appeared nude in a print advertisement and 30-second commercial for PETA championing vegetarianism; the TV spot was subsequently pulled from the Houston, Texas, market by Comcast Cable. Silverstone has set up a sanctuary for rescued pets in Los Angeles. She has revealed she struggled with childhood vegetarianism stating "There were times when I would get selfish and eat meat - at eight years old it's hard to stick to your guns - and so through the years I was always starting and stopping trying to be a vegetarian."

Federal campaign contribution records also reveal that Silverstone contributed US$500 to Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign.

On May 23, 2007, Silverstone was a guest on ABC's The View. Moments before she entered, hosts Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck had a heated argument regarding the Iraq war. The video segment shows Silverstone entering and walking past Hasselbeck to greet the other hosts. Though the interview continued normally and featured easy conversation between Silverstone and Hasselbeck, Access Hollywood deemed the act a deliberate snub. Hasselbeck later revealed, on an episode of The View which aired September 19, 2007, that Silverstone called and apologized for the incident. Hasselbeck said that Silverstone never meant to be rude, but was simply nervous when she walked on the stage and believed that incident was wrongly perceived by the media. Silverstone supported Barack Obama's presidential candidacy.

In 2009, she appeared in "The Gaythering Storm," a Funny or Die spoof internet video parodying anti-same-sex marriage commercial "The Gathering Storm." She also appeared in "My Mother's Red Hat" with Alanis Morissette parodying indie movies.

Filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1993	The Crush	Adrian/Darian Forrester	MTV Movie Awards
1995	Le Nouveau monde	Trudy Wadd	a.k.a New World
	Hideaway	Regina Harrison
	Clueless	Cher Horowitz	American Comedy Award
	The Babysitter	Jennifer
1996	True Crime	Mary Giordano	direct-to-video
1997	Batman & Robin	Batgirl/Barbara Wilson	Kids' Choice Award
	Excess Baggage	Emily Hope	also uncredited producer
1998	Junket Whore	Herself	documentary
1999	Blast from the Past	Eve Rustikoff
2000	Love's Labour's Lost	The Princess of France
2002	Global Heresy	Natalie "Nat" Bevin	a.k.a Rock My World
2003	Scorched	Sheila Rio
2004	Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed	Heather Jasper-Howe
2005	Beauty Shop	Lynn
	Silence Becomes You	Violet	direct-to-video
2006	Stormbreaker	Jack Starbright
2010	Elektra Luxx	TBA	Pre-production
Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1992	The Wonder Years	Jessica Thomas	Episode: Road Test
1993	Torch Song	Delphine	TV-Movie
	Scattered Dreams	Phyllis Messenger	TV-Movie
1994	Cool and the Crazy	Roslyn	TV-Movie
1998	Wildlife Vet	Herself	TV documentary
2001-2005	Braceface	Sharon Spitz (voice)	TV cartoon series also executive producer Emmy nomination
2003-2005	Miss Match	Kate Fox	TV series Golden Globe nomination
2005	Queen B	Beatrice 'Bea'	TV-pilot co-executive producer
2006	Pink Collar	Hayden	TV-Pilot
	Candles on Bay Street	Dee Dee Michaud	TV-Movie
2007	The Singles Table	Georgia	TV series (unreleased)
2008	Bad Mother's Handbook	Karen	TV series (post-production)
Music videos
Year	Title	Role
1993	Cryin'	Young Girl	Aerosmith
	Amazing	Girl
1994	Crazy	Girl #1
2009	Her Diamonds	Frozen Girl	Rob Thomas
Theatre
Year	Title	Role	Director and writer
1993	Carol's Eve	Debbie	Pauline Lepor (writer) Valerie Mayhew (director)
2002	The Graduate	Elaine Robinson	Terry Johnson Broadway
2006	Boston Marriage	Catherine	David Mamet
2007	Speed-the-Plow	Karen	David Mamet (writer) Randall Arney (director)
2008	Time Stands Still	Mandy	Donald Marguiles (writer) Daniel Sullivan (director)

Awards and nominations

Year	Result	Award	Category	Show
1994	Won	MTV Movie Awards	Best Villain	The Crush
			Best Breakthrough Performance
	Nominated		Most Desirable Female
		Young Artist Awards	Best Young Leading Actress, Drama
1996	Won	National Board of Review	Best Breakthrough Performer	Clueless
		American Comedy Awards	Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture
		Blockbuster Entertainment Award	Best Female Newcomer
		MTV Movie Awards	Best Female Performance
			Most Desirable Female
	Nominated		Best Comedic Performance
		Kids' Choice Awards	Favorite Movie Actress
		Young Artist Awards	Best Young Leading Actress, Feature Film
1998	Won	Golden Raspberry Awards	Worst Supporting Actress	Batman & Robin
		Kids' Choice Awards	Favorite Movie Actress
	Nominated	Blockbuster Entertainment Award	Favorite Supporting Actress, Sci-Fi
2002		Daytime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program	Braceface
2004		Genesis Awards	Children's TV Series
	Nominated	Golden Globe Awards	Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy	Miss Match
		Satellite Awards	Best Actress, Musical or Comedy Series