Calista Flockhart
was born November 1l, 1964, in Freeport, Illinois. The daughter
of Ronald, a former Kraft Foods business executive, and Kay,
a teacher, Calista was raised in Iowa, Minnesota and New York
State, before finally settling down in Medford, New Jersey.
While a student at Shawnee
High School, Calista (which means "most beautiful"
in Greek) showed her school spirit by being an executive on
the student council and a member of the cheerleading squad.
Once a high school graduate, Calista went on to study Fine
Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. By
the time she graduated in 1987, she had already trained under
acting coach William Esper and appeared in numerous student
theater productions.
Calista then decided to pursue
acting full-time and headed to New York to follow her dreams.
She got a quick start, with roles in a Williamstown Theater
Festival presentation of Death Takes a Holiday, and off-Broadway
productions of Wrong Turn at Lungfish, Sophistry, and All
for One, and audiences were beginning to take notice.
She then moved to television
with bit parts on several soap operas (namely Guiding Light),
and finally a supporting role in 1991's Darrow, co-starring
Kevin Spacey. In 1992, she was cast in the lead role of a
woman with an eating disorder in the segment of "The
Secret Life of Mary-Margaret: Portrait of a Bulimic",
in the HBO series Lifestories: Families in Crisis (Ironically,
Calista is constantly denying allegations that her thinness
can be attributed to an eating disorder).
Her job as an aerobics instructor
supplemented her income, and she soon hired an agent and a
manager. While she was gaining praise in theater circles,
especially after roles in Beside Herself and Three Sisters,
she had not yet broken through in the real moneymakers: television
and film.
Doomed to a very tight-budget
life, Calista finally made it to Broadway with her award-winning
role in The Glass Menagerie. With a Theater World Award and
a Clarence Derwent Award to her name, she appeared in her
first feature film -- albeit a very small role -- in Quiz
Show. But it was thanks to her role in The Loop that she was
cast in a supporting role in the 1996 hit comedy, The Birdcage.
After her name went up in
Broadway lights yet again, this time in another production
of Three Sisters, television producer David E. Kelley heard
about Calista, who was becoming known as a reputable Broadway
actress. After much encouragement from her friends -- Calista
was not keen on going back to television -- she finally went
to the audition, and was cast as the lead in Ally McBeal right
away.
Kelley's intuition that Calista
was the perfect actress to play the romantic, neurotic lawyer
forever searching for Mr. Right wasn't too far off. Audiences
immediately took to the quirky show, which was receiving sky-high
ratings and critical praise. Calista's Ally McBeal role has
garnered her the 1998 Golden Globe for Best Performance by
an Actress in a TV series, and the Q Award in the same category.
She has also been nominated for an Emmy in 1998, and Golden
Globe and People Choice Award in 1999, to name a few.
Named one of People Magazine's
50 Most Beautiful People in 1998, Calista has been keeping
busy with other projects since the start of Ally McBeal in
1997. She appeared in the romantic comedy Milk and Money in
1997, and co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer (incidentally
David E. Kelley's wife) in the film adaptation of a A Midsummer
Night's Dream. She was most recently seen in 2000's Things
You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her, co-starring Cameron Diaz.
She also returned to her theater roots and starred in the
Broadway production of The Vagina Monologues.
Now single after a courtship
with Gary Shandling, Calista has recently adopted a baby boy,
an addition to her first "child," a terrier named
Webster.
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