Clorinda "Linda" Fiorentino (born March 9, 1958 or 1960) is an American former actress. Fiorentino made her screen debut with a leading role in the 1985 coming-of-age drama film Vision Quest, followed that same year with a lead role in the action film Gotcha! and an appearance in the film After Hours. Fiorentino gained attention for her lead roles in the erotic thriller Jade (1995), the science-fiction action comedy film Men in Black (1997) and the fantasy comedy Dogma (1999). For her performance in the 1994 film The Last Seduction, she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actress of the Year, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Contents

• 1 Early life and education
• 2 Career
• 3 Personal life
• 4 Filmography
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Early life and education

One of either seven or eight children in an Italian-American family, Fiorentino was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was raised in South Philadelphia and later moved with her family to the Turnersville section of Washington Township in nearby South Jersey.

In 1976, Fiorentino graduated from Washington Township High School in Sewell, New Jersey. She began performing in plays at Rosemont College in suburban Philadelphia, from which she graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. She trained at the Circle in the Square Theater School in Manhattan while working as a bartender at the nightclub Kamikaze, where Bruce Willis also worked.

Career

Fiorentino got her first professional role in 1985 when she starred in Vision Quest as "Carla". Film critic Roger Ebert said of the newcomer, "Without having met the actress, it's impossible for me to speculate on how much of Carla is original work and how much is Fiorentino's personality. What comes across, though, is a woman who is enigmatic without being egotistical, detached without being cold, self-reliant without being suspicious. She has a way of talking - kind of deliberately objective - that makes you listen to everything she says." In a 1994 appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, Fiorentino said she chose to stop acting for a period of time after Warner Bros. executive Mark Canton told her during the filming of Vision Quest, "you have a great *, but I think your jeans need to be tighter." She said she returned to acting later to pay off mounting credit card debt.

In 1985 she starred in the espionage comedy film Gotcha! which was filmed in Los Angeles, California; Paris, France; and Berlin, Germany. Her co-star, Anthony Edwards, later directed her in Charlie's Ghost Story.

After having taken various roles she next received accolades for her performance in director John Dahl's 1994 neo noir film The Last Seduction, playing the murderous femme fatale, Bridget. Her performance won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and the London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actress of the Year, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She followed this as the femme fatale in the 1995 erotic thriller Jade, a critical and box-office failure. She later worked again with Dahl on his film Unforgettable (1996).

Fiorentino played the female lead in the highly successful Men in Black in 1997, then appeared in the direct-to-video Body Count in 1998. In 1999, she starred in Dogma as an abortion clinic employee tasked with saving the world. Fiorentino did not get along with director Kevin Smith, which garnered negative press for her.

After a co-starring role with Paul Newman in the 2000 heist film Where the Money Is, and a lead role as the *ular character in the 2002 film Liberty Stands Still, Fiorentino's career slowed to a halt. She was in talks to star in a series being prepared by Tom Fontana, but ultimately did not take the project. Fiorentino was attached to a Georgia O'Keeffe biographical drama called Till the End of Time, but the project stalled when Fiorentino had a falling out with German producer Karel Dirka.

In 2007, Fiorentino optioned the rights to a screenplay about Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, with plans to produce and to possibly star in and direct, but the project was dropped. During this period, she was reported to be developing two do*entaries, neither of which moved forward.

Her last screen role was a supporting character in Once More with Feeling in 2009, the same year that her involvement in an incident came to light, relating to her criminal ex-boyfriend and the conviction of her FBI ex-boyfriend. The film was released direct to video.

Personal life

Fiorentino divorced film director and writer John Byrum in 1993. Her sister Donya Fiorentino, who was a model, was married to filmmaker David Fincher and then to actor Gary Oldman.

In 2009, former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Mark T. Rossini pleaded guilty to illegally accessing FBI computers during the prosecution of Los Angeles private investigator Anthony Pellicano. Law enforcement officials said Fiorentino previously had a relationship with Pellicano and wanted to *ist his defense. According to prosecutors, Fiorentino was then dating Rossini, and told him she was researching a screenplay based on the case. He conducted searches of government computers for information related to the Pellicano case and p*ed the results to Fiorentino, who then handed the files over to Pellicano's lawyers in a failed effort to help Pellicano avoid a 15-year prison sentence.

Filmography

References

External links

• Biography portal
• Film portal

• Linda Fiorentino at IMDb
• Linda Fiorentino (television). Charlie Rose (PBS). April 14, 2000. Retrieved September 1, 2017. Includes link to text transcript. Transcript archived from the original on November 28, 2017.