Thora Birch Biography
Born: March 11, 1982
By the time six-year-old Thora Birch made her feature film debut with a small role in Purple_People_Eater (1988), she was already a veteran television actress with two years' worth of commercial and series work under her diminutive belt.
Probably best known up to that point for her work opposite über-grandad Wilford_Brimley in a Quaker Oats commercial, Birch went on to grow up in front of the camera, evolving from Monkey_Trouble's moppet with a primate to a bras and boys-obsessed teeny bopper in Now and Then to Kevin_Spacey's rebellious daughter in American_Beauty.
Birch, who was born in Los Angeles on March 11, 1982, first attracted sizable notice for her role as Elijah_Wood's tomboy friend in Paradise, a 1991 family drama that also starred Melanie_Griffith and Don_Johnson. Afterwards, her visibility began to increase, first with a supporting role as Harrison_Ford's daughter in Patriot_Games (1992) (which she reprised in 1994's Clear and Present Danger), and then as one of the three kids who inadvertently bring three witches back to life in Hocus_Pocus (1993).
The actress got her first chance to play a teenaged role in the aforementioned Now and Then (1995), a coming-of-age drama that cast her as the younger version of Paradise co-star Melanie_Griffith. Neither that film, nor Birch's subsequent project, Alaska (1996), made a great impact among critics or audiences, and it was not until the actress was cast in American_Beauty (1999) that her career really began to accelerate. Birch, who dyed her hair Goth black and adopted a resolute sullenness for her role as the rebellious Jane Burnham, earned wide praise and a Screen Actors Guild award, and a host of international awards nominations, for her work in the acclaimed film.
After the success of American_Beauty, Birch -- who also had an uncredited role in that same year's Anywhere but Here -- was suddenly busy with a number of projects. Included among them were Ghost World, Terry_Zwigoff's screen adaptation of Daniel Clowes' celebrated comic about two teenage girls trying to deal with life after high school; The_Smokers, a teen drama that cast Birch as a drug-addled schoolgirl; and Dungeons and Dragons, in which she played an empress whose mystical kingdom is threatened by an evil wizard (Jeremy_Irons).
Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
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