Alicia Silverstone was born on October 4, 1976. She
is an American actress. She first came to widespread
attention in music videos for Aerosmith and later
starred in Hollywood films such as Clueless and
Batman and Robin.
Silverstone was born in San Francisco, California,
to Monty Silverstone, a British-born Jewish
real-estate investor, and Didi Radford, a
Scottish-born former flight attendant who converted
to Judaism upon marrying Silverstone's father. She
was raised in Hillsborough, California. Alicia is
the youngest of Monty and Didi's three children but
she also has a half-sister, Kezi Silverstone, who's
a rock singer in London from Monty's previous
marriage and a half-brother, David Silverstone. When
Alicia was six, Monty took some photos of his young
daughter. The photos allowed her to get some
modeling gigs which then led to television
commercials (the first being for Domino's Pizza).
Alicia later attended San Mateo High School in San
Mateo, California where she was a cheerleader.
During this time she acquired some early modelling
and advertising work and eventually got the part of
the 'dream girl' on American TV series The Wonder
Years.
She won a leading part in the 1993 movie The Crush,
playing a girl who sets out to ruin an older man
after her teenage crush is spurned, for which she
won two awards at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards.
Silverstone actually became legally emancipated at
the age of 15 in order to work the hours required
for the shooting schedule of The Crush.
She went on to star in three Aerosmith music videos,
entitled "Cryin," "Crazy," and "Amazing," which were
hugely successful both for the band and Silverstone,
making her a household name (and also the nickname,
"the Aerosmith chick"). Around this period,
Silverstone was offered the role of Valerie Malone,
on Beverly Hills 90210. After she turned it down,
the role went to Tiffani Thiessen.
After Clueless became a huge sleeper hit and
critical darling during the summer of 1995,
Silverstone was hailed as the woman of the hour, and
branded the spokeswoman for an emerging young
generation. As a result, she was able to sign a deal
with Columbia-TriStar worth $10 million. As part of
the package, she got a three-year first-look deal
for her own production company, First Kiss
Productions.
The first movie to be released by First Kiss
Productions was a 1997 black comedy called Excess
Baggage. Excess Baggage, a movie in which
Silverstone played a chain smoking, underage
drinking, rich brat, who fakes her own kidnapping in
order to get her father's attention, was not as
critically or commercially embraced as Clueless.
Silverstone also came under fire (especially by E!)
for receiving such a lucrative production deal so
early in her career. Excess Baggage was such a
disappointment, that after just one film, Columbia-TriStar
quietly let their production deal with Silverstone
expire.
Around the time she was featured as Batgirl in
Batman and Robin, Silverstone was lambasted by
tabloid media and mainstream press alike for putting
on weight. Though hardly obese by any standard,
Silverstone had obviously put on more weight than
the public was used to seeing her carry, and this
started a whirlwind of rumours which affected her
personal life. Ironically, she was turned down for
the lead in 1994's My Father the Hero because the
producers said that she was too heavy for the part.
The role ultimately went to Katherine Heigl instead.
She suffered further bad press for allegedly
striking a pedestrian with her vehicle in a
crosswalk and it didn't help Silverstone's cause
that Batman and Robin was an even bigger critical
and commercial failure than her other movie from
1997, Excess Baggage.
For some time, Silverstone, despite her young age,
gained the reputation of being a "has been", who
reached her peak with the Aerosmith videos and
Clueless. She effectively removed herself from the
public eye for many years, resurfacing in the
critically acclaimed NBC television show Miss Match,
which was cancelled after thirteen episodes in fall
2003. This long hiatus was referred to in the pilot
episode of the television series Get Real, as an
exasperated Kenny remarked "Why can't I fall off the
face of the earth, like Alicia Silverstone?"
Silverstone later acknowledged that she hates the
trappings of fame, insisting that being a celebrity
is a horrific ordeal that she wouldn't want her
worst enemy to suffer. According to Silverstone
"Fame is not anything I wish on anyone. You start
acting because you love it. Then success arrives,
and suddenly you're on show."
Silverstone reportedly refuses to appear nude in any
of her movies. Because of this, she requires a body
double in her place for nude scenes. When she
starred in the stage version of The Graduate, she
insisted on wearing underwear for the famous
nude-scene. The producers were forced to let her do
this because, otherwise, she would have resigned
from the show.
She has also acted in the Shakespeare production
Love's Labour's Lost.
Silverstone married her longtime boyfriend
Christopher Jarecki, lead singer of the band
S.T.U.N., in a beachfront ceremony at Lake Tahoe on
June 11, 2005. The couple dated for eight years
prior to being married.
She is also noted for her strong views on animal
welfare and is a committed vegan. In 2004,
Silverstone was voted sexiest female vegetarian. She
is bilingual, fluent in English and French.
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