Born: June 18, 1952

Isabella Rossellini was one of the twin daughters born to actress Ingrid_Bergman and director Roberto_Rossellini in 1952. After growing up in Italy, she came to America when she was19 and studied at Finch College and the New School for Social Research. She then returned to Rome, where she worked as a translator and TV journalist (not unlike her New York-based half-sister Pia_Lindström). Just for fun, Rossellini made her first movie appearance in 1976, playing a bit in her mother's film A Matter of Time. She found acting to her liking, appearing in several European TV dramas before her first big-screen starring role in 1979's The_Meadow. In the early 1980s, Rossellini put her film activities on the back burner to concentrate on her modelling career on behalf of Lancome Cosmetics. After her first marriage (to Hollywood director Martin_Scorsese) ended in 1983, she began a relationship with ballet star Mikhail_Baryshnikov, with whom she co-starred in White_Nights (1985). She was later involved was filmmaker David_Lynch, who cast her in her breakthrough role as a much-abused small-town nightclub singer in Blue_Velvet (1986). (Her other romantic partners have included her second husband John Wiedeman -- the father of her daughter Elettra -- and actor Gary_Oldman). Rossellini continued seeking out offbeat, challenging film roles into the '90s, including Anna Maria Ermody in the controversial Beethoven biopic Immortal_Beloved and no-nonsense frontierswoman Big Nose Kate in Wyatt_Earp (both 1994). She also starred in Campbell_Scott and Stanley_Tucci's delicious drama Big_Night in 1996. Hal Erickson, Rovi


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