Rosanna Arquette

Rosanna Lauren Arquette is an American actress, film director, and producer.

Early life

Arquette was born in New York City, the daughter of Brenda Olivia "Mardi" (née Nowak), an actress, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist, and Lewis Arquette, an actor and director. Her paternal grandfather was comedian Cliff Arquette. Her mother was Jewish, the daughter of a Holocaust refugee from Poland. Her father was a convert to Islam and a descendant of explorer Meriwether Lewis. Her siblings are actors Patricia, Alexis, Richmond, and David Arquette.

In 1963, Arquette's family moved to Chicago, where her father managed The Second City theater for several years. When she was eleven years old, her parents moved to a commune in Front Royal, Virginia. Arquette did not do well at school.[citation needed] In 1974, she hitchhiked across the country with three older teenagers, eventually going to San Francisco, where she worked at renaissance and Dickens fairs. Her professional theater debut was May 27, 1977, appearing in the Story Theatre Musical production of Ovid's The Metamorphoses at the Callboard Theatre on Melrose Place in Los Angeles.[citation needed]

Arquette was 19 when she married director/composer Tony Greco; they divorced 2 years later in October 1980.[citation needed]

Career

Arquette has appeared in both television and screen films. In 1982, she earned an Emmy Award nomination for the TV film The Executioner's Song. Arquette's first starring role was in John Sayles's Baby It's You, a highly regarded but little seen film.[citation needed] She starred in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) alongside pop singer Madonna, for which she won a British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA). Following the commercial and critical failure of both After Hours and 8 Million Ways to Die, she quit Hollywood to work in Europe where she acted in Luc Besson's The Big Blue (1988).

In 1989, director Martin Scorsese offered her a part in New York Stories. Other movies of note are Pulp Fiction and the David Cronenberg film, Crash and the Australian film Wendy Cracked a Walnut (1990) (also known as …Almost). In 1990, Arquette appeared on the cover and in a nude pictorial in Playboy's September issue, although she claimed it was without her prior knowledge or consent.

In recent years, Arquette has expanded into directing, including the documentaries Searching for Debra Winger (2002) and All We Are Saying (2005); she also produced both projects.

Arquette appeared in the short running What About Brian as Nicole Varsi and on Showtime's The L Word as Cherie Jaffe.[citation needed]

In 2009, she joined Fit Parent Magazine, founded by Craig Knight, as Editor at Large.Arquette stars in the French thriller The Divide, directed by Xavier Gens.