RENE RUSSO Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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RENE RUSSO

Name: Rene Marie Russo                                                             
Born: 17 February 1954 Burbank, California, U.S.A.                                 
                                                                                   
Rene Marie Russo (born February 17, 1954) is an American film actress and former   
fashion model.                                                                     
                                                                                   
Russo, a Sicilian/Italian American, was born in Burbank, California, the           
daughter of Shirley (nee Balocca), a factory worker and barmaid, and Nino Russo,   
a sculptor and car mechanic who left the family when Rene was two.                 
Russo grew up with her sister, Toni, and their single mother. She attended         
Burroughs High School (where her classmates included director Ron Howard), but     
eventually dropped out in the tenth grade. Due to financial constraints within     
the family, she began taking a variety of part-time jobs including working in an   
eyeglass factory, and as a movie cashier.                                           
                                                                                   
In 1972, Russo was spotted at a Rolling Stones concert by a scout and manager       
John Crosby from International Creative Management. She was signed to the Ford     
Modeling Agency and began modeling shortly after, appearing on the cover of         
several magazines, including Vogue. Russo spent the majority of the 1970s and       
early 1980s as a successful model, but later began to study acting, and appeared   
in roles at regional theaters in Los Angeles.                                       
                                                                                   
Russo made her television series debut in 1987, with a supporting role in the TV   
series Sable. Two years later, she made her debut in film as the girlfriend of     
the Tom Berenger character in Major League. Her breakthrough role is generally     
considered to be her part as a martial arts-practicing internal affairs             
detective Lorna Cole in Lethal Weapon 3 (and later again in Lethal Weapon 4).       
Throughout the 1990s, Russo appeared in a number of high-profile thrillers that     
were hugely successful at the box office, including In the Line of Fire,           
Outbreak, Ransom and The Thomas Crown Affair. She tried her hand at comedy in       
Tin Cup, Get Shorty and as the cartoonish Russian spy Natasha in the live-action   
film version of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. She starred in at least     
one major studio film per year from 1992 to 2002.                                   
                                                                                   
She recently starred in both Two for the Money and Yours, Mine and Ours.