Lili Taylor Biography
Born: February 20, 1967
One of the most versatile actresses working in film today, Lili Taylor is known for taking on complex, thorny roles that many of her more glamorous colleagues avoid. In the 1990s, she became a staple of the independent film circuit, turning in one engaging performance after another in films like The_Addiction (1995), Girls_Town (1996), and Pecker (1998).
A native of Glencoe, IL, where she was born on February 20, 1967, Taylor was raised in a comfortable middle-class household as the second youngest of six children. She started acting in grade school and briefly attended DePaul University's Goodman Theater School before launching her professional career in local and regional theater. She acted for a time with Evanston's Piven Theater, performing in the company of such future notables as John_Cusack, Aidan_Quinn, and Jeremy_Piven. In 1987, she spent a season on-stage in Czechoslovakia, returning stateside the following year to make her New York City stage debut in a production of +What Did He See?
That same year, Taylor ventured into feature films with a bit part in the John_Hughes comedy She's Having a Baby. Though the role brought Taylor little recognition, she scored big with her sophomore effort, a starring role in Mystic_Pizza (1988) as one of three amorous pizzeria girls (the other two were Julia_Roberts and Annabeth_Gish) working in a small Connecticut coastal town. More recognition followed for Say_Anything... (1989), in which Taylor played John_Cusack's hilariously obsessive best friend; she continued to shine in films like Bright_Angel (1991), in which she was cast as the drifter sister of a jailbird, and in Dogfight (1991), in which she was the obligatory "ugly duckling" who both transformed and was transformed by her reluctant date, River_Phoenix.
From the late '80s through the 1990s, Taylor proved to be a willing and able ensemble player in the works of several respected directors: Oliver_Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Nancy_Savoca's Household_Saints (1993), Robert_Altman's Short_Cuts (1993), and Alan_Rudolph's Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). She also did notable work in independent films, starring in Abel_Ferrara's The_Addiction (1995); Girls_Town (1996), a drama about four high school girls trying to cope with everyday hardship, for which she also co-wrote the screenplay; and I_Shot_Andy_Warhol (1996), which cast her in one of her most memorable roles as the mad, murderous Valerie Solanas.
In 1998, Taylor played the uncharacteristically glamorous role of an art dealer who tries to seduce the young hero of John_Waters' Pecker, and also tried her hand at screwball comedy with Stanley_Tucci's The Imposters. Having demonstrated her range in a number of genres, Taylor then took on big-budget horror in 1999 with her starring role in Jan de Bont's The Haunting. However, staying true to her indie loyalties, she could also be seen playing an ordinary woman who begins to lead an extraordinary life in Toni_Kalem's adaptation of Anne Tyler's -A Slipping Down Life, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of that year. Hal Erickson, Rovi
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