Illeana
Douglas
Saucer-eyed
actress Illeana Douglas (born July 25, 1965 in Massachusetts.) has been regularly
appearing in major films since 1987, when she debuted in the Shelley
Long comedy Hello Again.
The granddaughter of actor
Melvyn Douglas and
actress-turned-Congresswoman Helen Gahagan(1),
Douglas was born July 25, 1965, in Quincy, Massachusetts. After her
film debut, the actress worked for years in relative obscurity, at
one point dubbing a chilling scream for The Last Temptation of
Christ.
She frequently appeared in other Martin Scorsese
films, most notably Goodfellas (1990) and 1991's Cape Fear. Her
collaboration with the director also took place offscreen, as the
two dated for years. Following roles in a number of films, including
Household Saints (1993) and Quiz Show (1994), Douglas was cast in
Gus Van Sant's 1995 To Die For.
She won some measure of
recognition and critical praise for her role as Nicole Kidman's
sarcastic sister-in-law, and the following year landed the lead in
Allison Anders' Grace of My Heart. Although Douglas was again
praised for her work -- here portraying a Carole King-like
singer/songwriter -- the film did poorly among critics and at the
box office.
The actress went on to do a number of
made-for-TV films, including the satirical Weapons of M Distraction
in 1997. In 1999 she had a full plate, doing both television work
(appearing as a prostitute on the Fox series Action) and more film
work. She appeared with Kevin Costner in Message in a Bottle before
going on to make the independent film Happy, Texas, the supernatural
thriller Stir of Echoes with Kevin Bacon, and Can't Stop Dancing, a
comedy in which she acted alongside Margaret Cho and Janeane
Garofalo.
Illeana Douglas and the Web go together about as
well as the Swedish and meatballs. After all, the quirky actress
has found a following online with her IKEA-set comedy series, Easy
to Assemble, which starts its second season on My Damn Channel
today. (Douglas plays a fictional version of herself who, fed up
with showbiz, decides to work in an IKEA store.) And that’s not all:
The actress is hard at work (October 2009) producing a spin-off Web
series, Sparhusen, which follows a Swedish band that plays music for
the big box store.
At one time (pre-2002), she was married
to producer Jonathan Axelrod.e it
Note:
1. The Wikipedia biography states that Illeana Douglas is a
granddaughter of the actor Melvyn Douglas by his first wife, artist
Rosalind Hightower.
apparently, several published sources, including Melvyn Douglas's
own autobiography, "See You at the Movies" (University of America
Press, 1985) give Illeana Douglas's father is Gregory Hesselberg,
who is his son by his first wife, Rosalind Hightower, not his second
wife, Helen Gahagan Douglas. He was born before Melvyn Douglas
legally changed his surname to Douglas later in life, though his
half-siblings, Peter and Mary Douglas, used their father's changed
surname. Illeana Douglas's siblings bear the surname Hesselberg, as
per the obituary of her grandfather, Melvyn Douglas, and her brother
Stefan Gregor Hesselberg's obituary in the Hartford Courant. Her
brother Erik Hesselberg also uses Hesselberg as his surname, as per
his published clips online as well as his brother Stefan's obituary;
he is an editor and writer.
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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