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“I may look like the girl next door, but you wouldn't want to live next door to me.”
Birthname:
Elisabeth Judson Shue
Hometown:
Wilmington, Delaware
Assets:
Returned to college after 15 years and got her degree
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Elisabeth Shue is an Academy Award nominated American film actress. She began her career known as the girl-next-door, but in the mid-nineties changed everything when she became the abused-prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold in the Nicolas Cage starring Leaving Las Vegas. That role displayed her versatility, and energized her career. She’s now married to a Guggenheim, so no matter what happens in her professional career, she’s going to be set.
Elisabeth was born in Wilmington, Delaware to mother Anne Harms, a bank executive, and father James Shue, a lawyer and real estate developer. Her father was active in Republican politics and once ran for US Senate (unsuccessfully). Shue had an upper-class upbringing, but her parents divorced when she was in fourth grade. She attended Wellesley College and Harvard University; however, while studying at the latter, her acting career took off and she left prematurely. Shue returned 15 years later to get her degree.
Shue’s first breaks in acting came in television commercials for Burger King, DeBeers diamonds, and Hellman’s mayonnaise. Her first big break, was landing the role of Ralph Macchio’s girlfriend in The Karate Kid (1984). This cinema classic opened up doors for her, and she went on to land a slew of other roles in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, including Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Cocktail (1988), Back to the Future II (1989), Back to the Future III (1990), and Soapdish (1991). However, Shue’s career began to cool in the mid-nineties, and she knew she needed to shed her girl-next-door image. She took a chance on a low-budget, gritty project playing the prostitute girlfriend of a suicidal alcoholic in the edgy film Leaving Las Vegas (1995), opposite Nicolas Cage. The film paid off, big time, winning Shue Best Actress from the Independent Spirit Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, and the National Society of Film Critics Awards. She also received BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress.
Since Leaving Las Vegas, Shue has landed a slew of high-profile movie projects, including The Saint (1997), Palmetto (1998), Hollow Man (2000), and Hide and Seek (2005). While not making the most critically respected choices (any movie where Kevin Bacon is going to be invisible should be treated like the sign of the beast, FYI Elisabeth), Shue does manage to somehow stay near the top of the A-list project heap in Hollywood. Shue was slated to star opposite Jim Carrey in his most recent film, The Number 23, but she had to drop out due to pregnancy. She has several starring roles lined up, and is married to Davis Guggenheim, the director of the HBO TV series Deadwood, and the hit documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and a man wealthy enough to do whatever he wants and make sure his wife can do the same.
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