Linda Fiorentino

One of either seven[5] or eight children[1][6] in an Italian-American family, Fiorentino was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1] She grew up in South Philadelphia and later the Turnersville section of Washington Township in nearby South Jersey.[7] In 1976, Fiorentino graduated from Washington Township High School in Sewell, New Jersey.[8] She began performing in plays at Rosemont College in suburban Philadelphia before graduating in 1980.[1][7] She trained at the Circle in the Square Theater School in Manhattan while working as a bartender at the nightclub Kamikaze, where fellow future acting professional Bruce Willis also worked.[6]

Fiorentino got her first professional role in 1985 when she starred in Vision Quest.

She then starred in the action film Gotcha! which was filmed in Los Angeles, California; Paris, France; and Berlin, Germany.[9] Her co-star, Anthony Edwards, later directed her in Charlie's Ghost Story.

In 1994, she received accolades for her performance in director John Dahl's 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.[10] In 1999, she starred in Dogma as an abortion clinic employee tasked with saving the world.

After a co-starring role in the 2000 heist film Where the Money Is, and a lead role as the titular 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.[11] 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 the producer.[12] 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 documentaries,[13] none of which moved forward. As of 2019, Fiorentino has made a single screen appearance since, in the 2009 direct-to-video release Once More with Feeling.

Fiorentino is divorced from film director and writer John Byrum.[6][14] Her sister Donya Fiorentino was a model married to filmmaker David Fincher, with whom she has a daughter, from 1990 to 1995, and then to actor Gary Oldman, with whom she has two sons, from 1997-2001.[15][16][17]

• Official website
• Linda Fiorentino on IMDb
• Linda Fiorentino (television). Charlie Rose (PBS). April 14, 2000. Retrieved September 1, 2017. Includes link to text transcript.