LEELEE SOBIESKI Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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LEELEE SOBIESKI

Name: Leelee Sobieski                                                                         
Birth name: Lilliane Rudabet Gloria Elsveta Sobieski                                         
Born: 10 June 1983 New York City, New York, U.S.                                             
                                                                                             
Leelee Sobieski (born June 10, 1983) is an American actress.                                 
                                                                                             
Sobieski was born Liliane Rudabet Gloria Elsveta Sobieski in New York City, the               
daughter of Elizabeth (née Salomon), an American novelist and screenwriter who               
also works as Sobieski's manager, and Jean Sobieski, a French painter and artist             
who appeared in French and Italian spaghetti Westerns during his youth, as well               
as dated actress Jean Seberg. Sobieski's first name, "Liliane", was the                       
name of her paternal grandmother. Sobieski has a younger brother, Robert, who                 
attends Princeton University. Sobieski's late maternal grandfather, United                   
States Navy captain Robert Salomon, was Jewish and Sobieski grew up in a "pan-religious"     
family; she has said that she is "proud of [her] Jewish roots". She has                       
noted that her "great, great, great, great uncle" was John III Sobieski, one of               
the elected kings of Poland who saved Europe by riding West with the Polish army             
in 1683 to lift the siege of Vienna from Ottoman Turks. Sobieski speaks fluent               
French, although she does not speak Polish. Her father currently lives in                     
France.                                                                                       
                                                                                             
Sobieski has described her upbringing as "bohemian", having often attended                   
Shakespeare in the Park and art galleries in SoHo during her childhood. During               
this time, she attended Trevor Day School and spent her summers in her                       
paternal grandfather's ranch in the Camargue. Sobieski attended Brown                         
University but dropped out after two and a half years. She is an ardent fan of               
Nina Simone and has a half Yorkshire Terrier, half Pomeranian dog named after                 
her.                                                                                         
                                                                                             
Sobieski rose to fame in her mid-teens with her appearance in the movie Deep                 
Impact (1998) and went on to play a modern Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide             
Shut (released in 1999, although she was not even fifteen when her nymphet-like               
scenes were shot), which led to the forming of a firm friendship with the                     
director. The title role in the TV movie Joan of Arc (1999) earned her an Emmy               
nomination and a Golden Globe nomination and a second nomination followed her                 
portrayal of Tosia Altman in the TV movie Uprising (2001).                                   
                                                                                             
Sobieski's fluency in French landed her roles in the Merchant Ivory Film A                   
Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998), L'Idole (2002) and the miniseries Les                 
Liaisons dangereuses (2003) with Catherine Deneuve and Rupert Everett, an                     
adaptation of Laclos's classic novel of sexual intrigue. Other movies she has                 
starred in include Jungle 2 Jungle (1997), Never Been Kissed (1999), Here on                 
Earth (2000), My First Mister (2001), The Glass House (2001), Uprising (2001),               
Joy Ride (2001), Max (2002), Hercules (NBC, 2005), and alongside Nicolas Cage in             
the 2006 remake of The Wicker Man directed by Neil LaBute.                                   
                                                                                             
One of her upcoming film roles is alongside Al Pacino in Jon Avnet's 88 Minutes.             
In 2007, Sobieski, starred in the Canadian film Walk All Over Me, which debuted               
at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11 of that year.                     
                                                                                             
Because of her resemblance to actress Helen Hunt, the two were pitted against                 
each other on the 59th episode of the satirical claymation television series,                 
Celebrity Deathmatch.                                                                         
                                                                                             
Nine Days released a song "Leelee" in tribute to Sobieski. In the song "Wonder               
(If She'll Get It)" by Superchic[k], Sobieski and one of her movies, Here on                 
Earth, were mentioned.