Alicia Silverstone
Alicia Silverstone (/əˈliːsiə/ ə-LEE-see-ə;[1] born October 4, 1976)[2] is an American actress. She made her film debut in the thriller The Crush (1993), earning the 1994 MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, and gained further prominence as a teen idol when she appeared in the music videos for Aerosmith's songs "Cryin', "Amazing" and "Crazy". She went on to star as Cher Horowitz in the teen comedy film Clueless (1995), which earned her a multi-million dollar deal with Columbia Pictures. In 1997, she starred in the superhero film Batman & Robin, playing Batgirl.
Alicia Silverstone
October 4, 1976
Actress
1992–present
1
Silverstone received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for her role in the short-lived NBC series Miss Match (2003). She has continued to act in film and television and on stage.
A vegan, Silverstone has endorsed PETA activities and published two cookbooks: The Kind Diet (2009) and The Kind Mama (2014).
Early life[edit]
Silverstone was born in San Francisco, California,[2][3] the daughter of Deirdre "Didi" Silverstone (née Radford), a Scottish former Pan Am flight attendant; and Monty Silverstone, an English real estate agent.[4][5] She grew up in Hillsborough, California.[3] Her father was born to a Jewish family and her mother converted to Conservative Judaism before marriage. Silverstone had a Bat Mitzvah ceremony.[6] She began modeling when she was six,[7] and was subsequently cast in television commercials, the first being for Domino's Pizza.[8] She attended Crocker Middle School, then San Mateo High School.[9]
Career[edit]
1990s[edit]
Her first credited acting role was on The Wonder Years in 1992, in the episode "Road Test", as Kevin's high school "dream girl".[10] Silverstone made her film debut when she obtained the leading role in the erotic thriller The Crush, playing a teenage girl who sets out to ruin an older man after he spurns her affections; she became legally emancipated at the age of 15 to work the hours required for the shooting schedule of the film.[8] She won two awards at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards for the role—Best Breakthrough Performance and Best Villain.[3] Silverstone made some television films in her early career, including Torch Song, Cool and the Crazy,[3] and Scattered Dreams.
After seeing her in The Crush, Marty Callner decided Silverstone would be perfect for a role in a music video he was directing for Aerosmith, called "Cryin'." Silverstone is shown getting a navel piercing in the music video, which has largely been credited as introducing the navel piercing to mainstream culture.[11] She was subsequently cast in two more Aerosmith videos, "Amazing" and "Crazy". These were hugely successful for both the band and Silverstone, making her a household name.[12] After seeing Silverstone in the three videos, filmmaker Amy Heckerling decided to cast her in the coming-of-age comedy Clueless, in the role of Cher Horowitz, a sweet but spoiled girl living in Beverly Hills.[13] Clueless became a hit and critical darling during the summer of 1995,[14] and as a result, Silverstone signed a deal with Columbia-TriStar valued between $8 and $10 million.[15][16] As part of the package, she got a three-year first-look deal for her own production company, First Kiss Productions. Silverstone also won Best Female Performance and Most Desirable Female at the 1996 MTV Movie Awards, plus awards from Blockbuster Entertainment Award, Kids' Choice Awards, National Board of Review, and an American Comedy Award for her performance in the film.[17]
Silverstone had three other film releases in 1995—Le Nouveau monde, Hideaway and The Babysitter. The French drama about Americans Le Nouveau monde saw her play the love interest of a French boy. In the film adaptation of the novel by Dean Koontz, Hideaway, she took on the role of the daughter of a man who dies in a car accident and is revived two hours later, and the film The Babysitter[3] was a B erotic thriller directed by Guy Ferland based on the eponymous short story by Robert Coover in his 1969 collection Pricksongs and Descants.
In 1996, she starred in the direct-to-video thriller True Crime as a Catholic school student searching for a murderer of teenage girls. Her next role was Barbara Wilson/Batgirl in Batman & Robin (1997). Budgeted at $160 million,[18] the film grossed a modest $238 million worldwide,[19] and her turn as Batgirl received polarized reviews from critics, who also considered the film to be one of the worst films of all time.[20][21] Silverstone won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress,[22] but received a Blimp Award at the Kid's Choice Awards for the role.
Also in 1997, the first film by Silverstone's production company, Excess Baggage, was released. In the film, she plays a neglected young woman who stages her own kidnapping to get her wealthy father's attention, only to actually be kidnapped by a car thief. The film only grossed $14.5 million in North America,[23] and received mediocre reviews from critics; Roger Ebert mentioned that she was "no better than OK" as he felt that she was miscast.[24] Silverstone starred as the female lead in the romantic comedy Blast from the Past (1999), directed by Hugh Wilson and co-starring Brendan Fraser, Christopher Walken, and Sissy Spacek. Critical response towards the film was mixed,[25] while it made a modest $40 million globally.[26]
2000s[edit]
In the 1990s, her public profile and film career saw significant growth. For the next decade, Silverstone stepped aside from the spotlight and opted to focus on smaller-scale films and theater.[27] In Love's Labour's Lost (2000), a film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play, directed by Kenneth Branagh, Silverstone played the Princess of France, a role which required her to sing and dance. While critical response was mixed, the film received a limited theatrical release.[28][29] Film critic James Berardinelli felt that Silverstone, "while not completely at ease with all of her dialogue, is surprisingly credible" in her portrayal.[30]
Silverstone executive produced and provided the voice of Sharon Spitz, the lead part, in the Canadian animated television Braceface, from 2001 to 2003. During this period, she played the bassist of a rock band in the independent comedy Global Heresy (2002), opposite Peter O'Toole and Joan Plowright, and made her Broadway debut alongside Kathleen Turner and Jason Biggs in a stage version of The Graduate, which ran between 2002 and 2003 at the Plymouth Theatre.[3] Silverstone also starred as one of several disgruntled bank employees trying to rob the same bank in the small-scale comedy Scorched (2003), co-starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Woody Harrelson, and John Cleese.
Silverstone signed on to headline the 2003 NBC television series Miss Match, as Kate Fox, a Los Angeles matrimonial attorney who doubles as a high-end matchmaker. The show was cancelled after only 11 episodes had aired, and Variety in its review for the show, wrote: "It's a shame that she's stuck with such wafer-thin material here, because Silverstone is undoubtedly a fun, perky presence on the small screen."[31] Nevertheless, she earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy.
Activism[edit]
Silverstone is an animal rights and environmental activist. She became a vegan in 1998 after attending an animal rights meeting, saying, "I realized that I was the problem ... I was an animal lover who was eating animals."[99] She has stated she struggled with childhood vegetarianism: "At eight years old it's hard to stick to your guns – and so through the years I was always starting and stopping trying to be a vegetarian."[100] She has been criticised due to her anti-vaccine stance, promotion of pseudoscientific diet and lifestyle choices, and her claims regarding the medical and spiritual benefits of veganism.[101]
In 2004, Silverstone was voted "Sexiest Female Vegetarian" by PETA.[102] In 2007, she appeared nude in a print advertisement and 30-second commercial for PETA championing vegetarianism; the TV spot was subsequently pulled from the Houston, Texas market by Comcast Cable.[103] In 2016, she posed nude in one of the group's "I'd Rather Go Naked" anti-wool ads.[104] She has set up a sanctuary for rescued pets in Los Angeles.[105][106] In 2012, during the trial of Russian band Pussy Riot, she wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin asking that vegan meals be made available to all Russian prisoners.[106][107]
Federal campaign contribution records list Silverstone contributing $500 to Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign.[108] She supported Barack Obama's presidential candidacy,[109] and endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for president in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[110] In 2023, Silverstone endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the 2024 Democratic primaries and announced that she had left the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent.[111]
In 2009, she appeared in "A Gaythering Storm", a Funny or Die spoof Internet video parodying anti-same-sex marriage commercial "Gathering Storm".[112]
Personal life[edit]
Silverstone has two older siblings: a half-sister from her father's previous marriage, Kezi Silverstone, and a brother, David Silverstone.
She married her longtime boyfriend, rock musician Christopher Jarecki, in a beachfront ceremony at Lake Tahoe on June 11, 2005.[113][114] After meeting outside a theater in 1997, they dated for eight years prior to their marriage.[99] They got engaged about a year before their marriage, and Jarecki presented Silverstone with an engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother.[115]
They lived in an eco-friendly Los Angeles house, with solar panels and an organic vegetable garden.[99] Silverstone had bought the house, shared with a "menagerie of rescued dogs", in 1996.[115]
On May 5, 2011, Silverstone gave birth to a son.[116] In March 2012, she received media attention for uploading a video of herself feeding chewed food to her son from her own mouth.[117][118]
Jarecki and Silverstone separated in February 2018.[119] In May 2018, she filed for divorce,[120] and it was finalized in November 2018.[121]