Daryl Hannah Biography

NAME: Daryl Christine Hannah  

OCCUPATION: Animal Rights Activist, Environmental Activist, Film Actress

BIRTH DATE: December 03, 1960 (Age: 51)

EDUCATION: Francis W. Parker, USC

PLACE OF BIRTH: Chicago, Illinois

Daryl Christine Hannah was born on December 3, 1960 in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother, Susan, was a producer and her father, Don, was the owner of a tugboat and barge company. Susan and Don divorced when Daryl was quite young; her mother went on to remarry Jerrold Wexler. Daryl grew up with siblings Don and Page and half-sister Tanya Wexler. Daryl attended Francis W. Parker private school and then the University of Southern California. While still a child, Hannah lost the tip of her left index finger in an accident and today she sometimes wears a prosthetic fingertip in movies. Hannah traces her interest in movies to her childhood, when she was extremely shy and suffered from insomnia. 

Hannah took a variety of low-profile roles for the rest of the decade and appeared on stage in 2000 in the London production of "The Seven Year Itch." She received mixed reviews but continued to work steadily in film for the next several years. Hannah remained an enigmatic actress, at times showing comic genius and serious dramatic ability while still managing to get stuck in dead-end roles, such as playing Mandy Moore's mother in the teen weeper film "A Walk to Remember" (2002). As she aged, Hannah displayed an increasing comfort zone with her still-perfect body, baring much of it as a troubled exotic dancer Angel in "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" (2002), a film with gritty and serious overtones that still never quite shines beyond its high nudity factor (the actress reportedly also performed live in various Los Angeles-area stip clubs in preparation for the role). Nevertheless, she delivered a strong turn in the Polish brother's entrancing "Northfork" (2003) as the regal, empathetic hermaphrodite Flower Hercules, one of four apparent angels who visit the dreams of the son of a religious zealot who stayes behind in a '50s era Montana town about to be obliterated by a new dam; she was also compelling in writer-director John Sayles' "Casa de Los Babys" (2003) as the athletic, ever-running masseuse Skipper, one of several American woman living temporarily in Mexico while waiting to adopt babies, who is haunted by her three miscarriages.

Hannah hosts her own weekly video blog, concerned with sustainable solutions. For her beliefs, Hannah was arrested in June of 2006 trying to help save the future of a large urban farm in south-central Los Angeles. Also arrested at the same protest where Joan Baez and Julia Butterfly Hill.