Bijou Phillips Biography

Birth Name : Bijou Lilly Phillips

Date of Birth : 1 April 1980, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA

Nickname : Bij, B

Height : 5' 6" (1.68 m)

Occupation : Actress, model, singer

An actress and singer-songwriter with a frequently changing look most often topped with blonde close-cropped hair, Phillips got her start as a model, and counted among her credits a stint at age 13 in a controversial Calvin Klein advertising campaign. This daughter of The Mamas and the Papas founder John Phillips and South African model/actress/artist Genevieve Waite had an odd childhood, shifting from one drug-addled environment to another. By age 15, she was well-known among big city partygoers for her daring, attention-grabbing stunts and had a brief but much publicized affair with much-older rocker Evan Dando when only 16. Phillips had earned quite a reputation, and was known before long as the girl most likely to shock.

At 17, she acquired a record deal and began work on her album "I'd Rather Eat Glass" produced by Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison. She was later cast in Black and White (1999/I) by director James Toback and garnered nothing but glowing praise from critics for her performance. Larry Clark cast her in Bully (2001) which led "The Hollywood Reporter" to name her one of 2002's "Shooting Stars of Tomorrow". Bijou continues to make great films with last year's role opposite 'Jeff Bridges' and Kim Basinger in The Door in the Floor (2004), a film adaptation of John Irving's novel, "A Widow For One Year". She most recently completed a leading role opposite Anne Hathaway in Oscar-winning writer, Stephen Gaghan's Havoc (2005), directed by Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, Barbara Kopple. This is only the beginning for her, with several projects on the horizon, including her portrayal of "Lorna Doom" opposite Shane West in a feature film, about late 70s seminal-punk band The Germs, called What We Do Is Secret (2007), Venom (2005) (aka "Backwater"), produced by Scream (1996/I)'s Kevin Williamson, she is in the new film Choke (2008), with Anjelica Huston and Sam Rockwell. As well as starring in a comedy called Made for Each Other (2009) with Christopher Masterson, she just played "Nancy Spungen", as in "Sid and Nancy", in a bio-pic about the Chealsea Hotel, Chelsea on the Rocks (2008), directed by Abel Ferrara.