Alicia Silverstone was born
on October 4, 1976 in San Francisco, California, United States.
She attended Crocker Middle School and then San Mateo High
School. Whenever the Silverstones had time during the summer,
they went to England with to visit relatives (mother --Didi--
was a airline stewardess so they got discounts). Alicia's
father, Monty, saw how beautiful Alicia was and he started
to take pictures, which started a modeling career at the age
of eight. Alicia got modeling jobs for YSL, Levis' Dockers,
and Marshall's. She also took some ballet classes and won
4th place at a contest. Alicia said modeling was a easy way
to make money, but it wasn't what she wanted to do. Alicia
wanted to act.
With her tender,
titillating presence in films and music videos, Alicia Silverstone
elicits tingles in adolescent boys and dirty old men alike.
Now, however, Silverstone has blossomed beyond her testosterone-laden
core audience. In 1995, she put her naughty freshness to use
in director Amy Heckerling'sClueless; Silverstone's performance
as a good-hearted Beverly Hills teenager won critical and box-office
kudos. She very quickly became Hollywood's next big thing and
was signed to a $10 million deal with Columbia Pictures. A San
Francisco native, Silverstone launched her career at the age
of six in a series of swimsuit snapshots taken by her father,
a real estate investor. Those photos begat a steady stream of
modeling gigs — including a Domino's TV commercial — and casting
agents soon noticed her nubile charisma. After a guest shot
on ABC's The Wonder Years, Silverstone signed up for her cinematic
debut as a man-obsessed young woman in 1993's The Crush. Before
filming began, Silverstone legally became an emancipated minor
in order to evade child labor laws that would have restricted
her working hours. The Crush bombed with critics, but the Beavis
and Butt-Head set found Silverstone's presence quite compelling.
She then further agitated the country's hormone pool with a
trio of wildly successful music videos for a group of prehistoric
rockers called Aerosmith. Though she had captivated countless
high school students, Silverstone herself dropped out of Beverly
Hills High because of career demands. That's not to impart on
her some sort of airhead status, as Silverstone has displayed
considerable show-business savvy: she doesn't do nude scenes
("As if!"); she declined a role on post-Brenda Beverly Hills,
90210; she agreed to play Batgirl in Batman & Robin; and, as
part of her Columbia package, she secured a three-year, non-exclusive
first-look deal for her First Kiss Productions. In her debut
release as producer, Excess Baggage, Silverstone played an attention-seeking
teen who fakes her own kidnapping. More appealing was her turn
opposite Brendan Fraser in the 1999 fish-out-of-water romantic
comedy Blast From the Past.
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