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Alicia Witt (born August 21, 1975 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is an American actress.
Biography
Alicia
Witt was discovered by David Lynch, when she
appeared on the first episode of That's Incredible
in 1980, reciting Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He
then cast her for the movie Dune (1984), where she played Muad'Dib's young sister Alia of the Knife.
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After this, Witt left Hollywood for six years,
concentrating on school and music. She took piano
lessons at Boston University and won several
national and international classical piano
competitions, including the Bartok-Kabalevsky
International Piano Competition.
At age 14, Alicia earned her High School Diploma
and, shortly thereafter, moved permanently to
Hollywood with her mother (who is noted in the
Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest
hair) to pursue a career as a full-time actress.
Soon, David Lynch, whom she refers to as a mentor,
created the role of Gersten Hayward in his hit
series Twin Peaks especially for her. He would again
cast her in the segment Blackout in his short-lived
HBO series Hotel Room. That was the last
collaboration between the two for the time being. At
that time, Alicia was already supporting herself
playing the piano at the Regent Beverly Wilshire
Hotel.
Alicia
Witt then went on to small parts in Mike Figgis'
Liebestraum (in which her brother Ian also appears),
the Gen-X drama Bodies, Rest & Motion and the
TV-Movie The Disappearance of Vonnie.
In 1994, Alicia landed her first lead-role in a
feature film playing the disturbed teenager Bonnie
in Fun. She received the Special Jury Recognition
Award at the Sundance Festival and was nominated for
Best Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards. This
performance made Madonna want Witt to be cast as her
witch-lover in the first segment The missing
ingredient of Four Rooms.
Alicia
Witt was introduced to a larger audience playing the
role of Zoey Woodbine, the daughter of actress
Cybill Shepherd's character in the sitcom Cybill
from 1995 to 1998. Between seasons, she kept on
starring in feature films; Mr. Holland's Opus,
Alexander Payne's abortion comedy Citizen Ruth,
Passion's Way and Bongwater.
After Cybill got cancelled, Alicia got another
leading role in the Scream-ish campus-horror Urban
Legend and the animated feature Gen 13 which was
never released, because the studio stopped funding
before the completion of the movie.
2000 was a busy year for Witt with guest starring
roles on the shows Ally McBeal, and The Sopranos,
the lead in the comedy Playing Mona Lisa, an
instant-classic turn as an anal porn star in John
Waters' Cecil B. Demented and her stage-debut in
Robbie Fox's musical The Gift at the now closed
Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles, in which she played
a high priced stripper with a disease.
In the years following, things got more quiet around Witt. She had a small part in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, which was in fact intended as a reference to her roles in Dune and Liebestraum. She also
Film List for Alicia
Witt
This Alicia Witt Biography Page is Copyright © 2004 - 2006 Chuck Ayoub