Samantha Mathis Biography
Born: May 12, 1970
The daughter of actress Bibi_Besch, Samantha Mathis earned respect and popularity for her work in such '90s films as Pump up the Volume (1990), Little_Women (1994), and John_Woo's Broken_Arrow (1996). A native of Brooklyn, where she was born May 12, 1970, Mathis grew up surrounded by show business thanks to her mother's job. She made her professional debut alongside her mother in a TV commercial for baby products and had her first speaking role as Merlin_Olsen's daughter in the short-lived 1988 TV series Aaron's_Way. It was with her first onscreen starring role in the seminal '90s high school insurrection drama Pump up the Volume that Mathis first earned recognition; following the film's success, she began appearing in lead roles in mainstream and independent films alike. Although she worked fairly steadily throughout the decade, doing particularly strong work in films such as Nora_Ephron's This_Is_My_Life (1992), her career was affected by the death of her mother in 1996 and the 1993 fatal drug overdose of then-boyfriend River_Phoenix, whom Mathis was with the night he died. She retreated somewhat from the limelight during the mid-'90s, but resurfaced in John_Woo's commercially successful Broken_Arrow (1996). In 2000, she could be seen as the mistress of a yuppie serial killer (Christian_Bale) in Mary_Harron's controversial and long-awaited American_Psycho. Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
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