Bonnie Somerville Biography

Name : Bonnie Somerville

Nickname : Bonz

Date of Birth : 24 February 1974, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Height : 5' 8" (1.73 m)

Occupation : Actress, singer

Bonnie was raised by her mother, and her mother's large Irish Catholic family in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Her mother is one of 9 children! Bonnie started acting and singing at a young age, appearing in all the high school plays at Poly Prep Country Day School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. She attended Boston College as a Musical Theater major, and left to move back home to New York to try acting professionally.

Somerville was noticed by a modeling scout while waiting tables. At the age of 22, Bonnie moved to Los Angeles at which point she assembled a band and got an agent. Somerville sang backup on Joshua Radin's first record. Her song "Winding Road" was included on the soundtrack for the film Garden State.

A tall, fresh-faced blonde actress and singer, Bonnie Somerville has worked in film and television, most notably in the miniseries "Shake, Rattle and Roll" (CBS, 1999) and the sitcom "Grosse Pointe" (The WB, 2000-01). Early guest work in 1998 episodes of the series "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place" (1998) and "Homicide: Life on the Street" (NBC) and a 1999 turn on Fox's "Beverly Hills, 90210" launched Somerville's career, but it was her turn as fictional 1950s rock and roll singer Lyne Danner in "Shake, Rattle and Roll" that auspiciously paired her acting talents and singing skills. The high-profile TV event made Somerville a familiar face and helped pave the way for work on regular series television. She was cast in the satirical sitcom "Grosse Pointe" in 2000, playing an exceptionally conscientious young actress new to the cast of the prime time teen soap. As Courtney Scott, Somerville showcased not only her comic capabilities, but a hip, lighthearted, self-mocking attitude, playing her show-within-a-show character Laura Johnson to good overdramatic effect. The actress has also branched out into big screen work with roles in the 1999 independent thriller "Sleep Easy, Hutch Rymes" as well as the 2000 releases "Crime + Punishment in Suburbia" and "Bedazzled".