Andie MacDowell Biography

NAME: Andie MacDowell

OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Model

BIRTH DATE: April 21, 1958 (Age: 53)

EDUCATION: Winthrop College

PLACE OF BIRTH: Gaffney, South Carolina

Model, actress. Born Rosalie Anderson MacDowell on April 21, 1958, in Gaffney, South Carolina. MacDowell supported herself at Winthrop College by working several minimum wage jobs, then dropped out as a sophomore to become an Elite model. After posing for such clients as L?Oreal and Calvin Klein, MacDowell got her acting break with a part in Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, though Glenn Close rerecorded her lines. MacDowell?s acting career subsequently stalled, but picked up momentum again in the 1990s with such successful films as Sex, Lies and Videotape, Short Cuts and the romantic hit Four Weddings and a Funeral.

MacDowell's likability enabled her to weather such disasters as Hudson Hawk (1991) and Bad Girls (1994), and allowed her to shine in a number of other films, including Groundhog Day (1993), Short Cuts (1993), and the hit romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). Although she starred in a series of disappointing films during the late '90s, she remained highly visible, popping up in such movies as Unstrung Heroes (1995), The Muse (1999), and Town and Country (2000). She earned good reviews playing a middle-age woman infatuated with a younger man in Crush, but the film was poorly distributed and little seen. She appeared in a string of direct-to-video efforts including the supernatural thriller The Last Sign opposite Tim Roth. She returned to the multiplexes after landing a major part in the Queen Latifah film Beauty Shop in 2005. The next year she lent her distinct vocal qualities to the 2006 animated film Barnyard, twenty years after having her voice dubbed out of her film debut. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi.

Following a voice role as Etta the Hen in the animated "Barnyard" (2006), she was number two in a line of six in the independently financed black comedy "The Six Wives of Henry Lefay" (2008), starring Tim Allen. She next appeared in the low-budget thriller "As Good As Dead" (2010) opposite Cary Elwes and Frank Whaley, before returning to the small screen to star in a pair of Lifetime movies, "Patricia Cornwell's At Risk" (2010) and "Patricia Cornwell's The Front" (2010), in which she played ambitious district attorney Monique Lamont, who reopens a 20-year-old murder case in order to further her own political ambitions. After appearing in an episode of the short-lived series "Lone Star" (Fox, 2010), MacDowell continued to star in smaller indies, like the seriocomedy "Happiness Runs" (2010) and the sports drama "The 5th Quarter" (2010).