Laura San Giacomo

Laura San Giacomo
Birth name	Laura San Giacomo
Born	November 14 1962 (age 45) West Orange, New Jersey, USA

Laura San Giacomo (born November 14 1962) is an American actress known for playing the role of Maya Gallo on the NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me! and Kit De Luca in the blockbuster film Pretty Woman, as well as other work on television and in films.

Profile

Laura San Giacomo, an Italian American, was raised in Denville, New Jersey. She discovered acting in high school and subsequently earned a degree in fine arts at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. She also attended Washington College. San Giacomo then went on to appear in several theater productions. San Giacomo has appeared on the Los Angeles stage in the Garry Marshall-Lowell Ganz production of Wrong Turn at Lungfish, the Princeton/McCarter Theatre production of Three Sisters and Off-Broadway in Beirut. She has also starred in Italian-American Reconciliation, regional productions of Shakespeare's The Tempest, As You Like It and Romeo And Juliet, as well as Crimes of The Heart.

San Giacomo first drew international attention in Steven Soderbergh's film, sex, lies, and videotape (1989), which also marked her film debut. Her work was nominated for a Golden Globe, and she also received a Los Angeles Film Critics' Association New Generation Award. The film itself was honored with the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Grand Prize, the Palme d'Or. San Giacomo cemented her reputation as a bankable actress from her role as Julia Roberts' character's wisecracking friend Kit De Luca in the film Pretty Woman (1990). The blockbuster movie ended up generating $178 million at the box office. ^[1] San Giacomo has appeared in such films as Miles from Home (1988), Quigley Down Under (1990), Vital Signs (1990), Under Suspicion (1991) and Nina Takes a Lover (1994). She also appeared in the Stephen King TV miniseries The Stand (in the role of Nadine Cross) opposite Rob Lowe, which landed them on the cover of the May 7 – 13 1994 issue of TV Guide. In 2001, San Giacomo landed the starring role of Jenifer in the Jenifer Estess bio-pic Jenifer, which aired on CBS in October of that year. The biopic was based on a woman who had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

In addition to that, San Giacomo did voice work for the animated series Gargoyles (as the character of Fox), but her representation insisted that her name not appear in the end credits because they believed that it could damage her career if her name appeared in the credits of an animated series. ^[2]

Having a child influenced Laura to make the transition from films to television. San Giacomo still wanted to work, but she didn't want to be away from her newborn son for months at a time as movies would require. And thus Laura decided to shift gears and begin working for a television series instead. Her move to television gave her a regular work schedule, not to mention that she didn't have to travel as much because the CBS Studio Center - the site of her new television project's tapings - was located within the vicinity of her San Fernando Valley residence. This led to perhaps her best known role as the neo-feminist character Maya Gallo in the sitcom Just Shoot Me! (1997–2003). She played a smart (yet sometimes naïve), hot-tempered, sassy journalist who reluctantly took a job at the fictional glamour magazine Blush - which happened to be owned by her father Jack Gallo (George Segal). The character was partially based on an unproduced idea Just Shoot Me! executive producer Steven Levitan once had in mind for actress Janeane Garofalo when he was a writer for The Larry Sanders Show. San Giacomo was originally cast in the starring role of the program as Just Shoot Me! was meant to be centered around her character, but the plot began to revolve round David Spade's Dennis Finch character by Season 3 (1998-1999). Despite the shift in focus, San Giacomo remained on as an integral part of the show and with top billing. She, along with the four other main cast members, appeared in all 148 episodes of Just Shoot Me!.

San Giacomo's work during Season 2 (1997-1998) earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 1998 for Best Actress in a Television Comedy or Musical, but she ended up losing the award to Ally McBeal's Calista Flockhart. Also, in a February 2000 interview Maxim conducted with fellow castmate David Spade, the taboo subject that is San Giacomo's breasts was brought up when they jokingly asked him if they were some sort of "special effect" due to their grandiose nature. Spade noted that Just Shoot Me! headquarters would often receive letters from viewers regarding San Giacomo's chest. Furthermore, just like in the case of his television character Finch (who supposedly once secretly videotaped Maya changing in to a jogging bra and dubbed it "The Maya Thing"), Spade is an admitted fan of them as well. So much so that he claimed that he was never not aroused by his buxom co-star while on the set of Just Shoot Me. ^[3][4] The show's writers had taken note of San Giacomo's ample bosom as well and they occasionally wrote dialogue for Maya's fellow peers - usually Finch or Nina Van Horn (Wendie Malick) - to poke fun at the enormity of her bust. San Giacomo let the "boob independent jokes" slide (every four episodes according to Spade, though it actually varied) and it was a long running gag on the comedy sitcom.

After NBC cancelled Just Shoot Me! in 2003, San Giacomo appeared sporadically on television and in films. She made guest appearances on several television series, including the short-lived CBS crime drama The Handler in 2003 and HBO's Unscripted in 2005. She was the narrator for the true-life crime series Snapped on Oxygen. San Giacomo also appeared in the 2005 films Checking Out and Havoc, as well as the 2006 film Conquistadora. San Giacomo was to have made her return to television on The WB's new drama Related in 2005, but the character was recast due to creative differences. Kiele Sanchez took her place as "Anne Sorelli" on the show. San Giacomo's public appearances were also few and far between as well. San Giacomo made her first public appearance in nearly a year on October 19 2005 at the 15th Annual Environmental Media Awards. San Giacomo made two more public appearances at the Crystal and Lucy Awards on June 6 2006 and at the 3rd Annual Alfred Mann Foundation Innovation and Inspiration Gala on September 9 2006.

In 2006, San Giacomo made her return to network television by making three guest appearances during the third season of Veronica Mars. San Giacomo reunited with her former love interest from Just Shoot Me!, Enrico Colantoni, playing Harmony Chase. Both Colantoni and San Giacomo enjoyed their "Veronica" reunion so much that they have lobbied for more Keith-Harmony stories. ^[5]

In September 2006, San Giacomo secured her first starring role on a television program since the cancellation of Just Shoot Me!. San Giacomo will be reuniting with another former peer as she will co-star opposite fellow Carnegie-Mellon alum Holly Hunter in TNT's drama pilot Grace. San Giacomo will be playing Grace's best friend who happens to be a forensic scientist. ^[6] The pilot episode was taped in Calgary in October 2006 and is scheduled to air in 2007. ^[7] It was reported in January 2007 that the series was picked up. ^[8] Some promotional ads for the show have started to air on TNT and the show is slated to debut in the summer.

Personal information

San Giacomo has been married twice: to actor Cameron Dye (1990-1998), with whom she had a son, Mason (born in 1996), who has cerebral palsy, and since 2000 to actor Matt Adler. She is a cousin of Torry Castellano of the rock group The Donnas.

She lives in the San Fernando Valley in California. Her hobbies include horseback riding, gymnastics, ice skating, ballet, tennis, golf and playing piano.

San Giacomo is a strong supporter of charitable causes, mostly disability-related ones. She has appeared at the Environmental Media Awards, the "Voices For Change" gala benefit and concert benefiting Children with Disabilities and the "Friends Finding a Cure" gala benefiting Project ALS. She is also a founder of the CHIME Charter Elementary School, which is an elementary school for children with special needs. The school opened its doors in 2001 and it is based out of Woodland Hills, California. As a charter school, CHIME provides free public education to students and admits them through a lottery system. The school serves approximately 200 children in kindergarten through fifth grade who live in communities around California's San Fernando Valley. ^[9]

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