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Elisabeth Judson Shue (born October 6, 1963) is an Academy Award-nominated American film actress. Flaxen-haired beauty Elisabeth Shue set the stage for all the typecasting to come, breaking into the business at age 16 as the perky, uniformed spokesclerk for a series of 20 national Burger King commercials. What followed was decidedly light fair that exploited her great looks but came nowhere near touching the soul beneath the surface. She made her feature debut as Ralph Macchio's gal pal in "The Karate Kid" (1984) and spent a year as the teenage daughter of Craig T. Nelson on the ABC series "Call to Glory" (1984-1985). Despite earning praise as the determined child-watcher in 1987's "Adventures in Babysitting", Shue was little more than window-dressing as Tom Cruise's love interest in "Cocktail" (1988) and Marty McFly's (Michael J. Fox) marooned girlfriend, Jennifer, in the second and third installments of the "Back to the Future" series (1989 and 1990). While "The Marrying Man" (1991) and "Hearts and Souls" (1993) also mined the insipid blonde theme, her determined aspiring actress in "Soapdish" (1991) and sexy bank teller seduced by Peter Gallagher in the noirish "The Underneath" (1995) showed a flair for more varied fare. Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware. Her mother, Anne Harms (née Wells), was a bank executive who was the vice president of the private division of the Chemical Banking Corporation. Her father, James Shue, is a lawyer and real estate developer who was the president of the International Food and Beverage Corporation and was active in Republican politics, having once unsuccessfully run for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey. Shue grew up in Bergen and Essex counties in New Jersey. Her parents divorced while she was in the fourth grade. Shue graduated from Columbia High School, in Maplewood, New Jersey, and attended Wellesley College and Harvard University, from which she withdrew to pursue her acting career. She returned to Harvard, 15 years after withdrawing, to finish her degree in Government in 2000. Shue was awarded entrance into Columbia High School's Hall of Fame in 1994, along with her brother, Andrew. During her studies at Columbia and after her parents' divorce, she found a way to make extra money by acting in television commercials. Shue became a common sight in ads for Burger King, DeBeers diamonds, and Hellman's mayonnaise. In 1984, she co-starred in The Karate Kid as the onscreen girlfriend of Ralph Macchio and had a role as the teenage daughter of a military family in the short-lived series Call to Glory. She continued with Adventures in Babysitting (her first starring role), Cocktail as the love interest of Tom Cruise and the comedies Soapdish and The Marrying Man. She also appeared in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III as Jennifer Parker, replacing original actress Claudia Wells, who declined to reprise the role from Back to the Future. Although often recognized for her girl next door image, Shue starred as a prostitute in the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage. The role earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She was also nominated for a BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actress, and won the Best Actress awards at the Independent Spirit Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards and the National Society of Film Critics Awards. After "Vegas", Shue starred in five films in three years, in addition to becoming a mother for the first time. Although "The Trigger Effect" (1996), "The Saint" and "Palmetto" (both 1997) were pretty forgettable, she did get the opportunity to work with Woody Allen in "Deconstructing Harry" (1997, as yet another in a string of younger women enthralled by Allen) and to play a period courtesan in Des McAnuff's "Cousin Bette" (1998), based on the Honore Balzac novel. Her role as Parisian music hall sensation Jenny Cadine offered her for the first time as a singer, and she continued to stretch as "Molly" (1999), shedding her vixen image to play a simple soul who maintains her childlike innocence when a miraculous cure transforms her autism to genius. Since then, she has starred in The Trigger Effect, The Saint, Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, Palmetto, and Hollow Man. In 1999, Shue starred in Molly as an autistic young woman, who underwent an operation that allowed her to become more "normal." She had strong supporting roles in Hide and Seek opposite Robert De Niro and Mysterious Skin. Shue reportedly was set to co-star with Jim Carrey in The Number 23 but became pregnant just weeks before filming and ended up losing the part to Virginia Madsen. Unfortunately, most critics regarded "Molly" as shamelessly sentimental, a TV-drama dressed up as a feature instead of the next "Rain Man" (1988). She then found herself in Paul Verhoeven's special effects extravaganza, "The Hollow Man" (2000), playing a government scientist assisting Kevin Bacon in his research project to unlock the secret of invisibility. She was better served by the Oprah Winfrey-produced telepic "Amy & Isabelle" (2001) as an overprotective mother who sordid past is revealed to her daughter. She then appeared in a string of undistinguished roles before resurfacing as Robert DeNiro's love interest in the routine thriller "Hide and Seek" (2005). |
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