Elisabeth Shue

Elisabeth Shue was born on October 6, 1963, in Wilmington, Delaware, to Anne Brewster Shue, a vice president in the private banking division of Chemical Bank, and James William Shue, a lawyer, real-estate developer, one-time congressional candidate, and president of the International Food and Beverage Corporation. Shue grew up in South Orange, New Jersey, after her parents divorced when she was nine. Her mother traces her lineage to Pilgrim leader William Brewster, while her father's family emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania in the early nineteenth century. She was raised alongside three brothers — William, Andrew, and John — and also has two half-siblings, Jenna and Harvey Shue, from her father's remarriage. Her younger brother Andrew became an actor, known for playing Billy Campbell on the Fox series Melrose Place.

Shue graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, in 1981, and she and Andrew were inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1994. She subsequently attended Wellesley College before transferring to Harvard University in 1985, withdrawing in her senior year to pursue acting. She returned to Harvard in 2000 and completed her bachelor of arts in government. During her high school years and following her parents' divorce, she appeared in television commercials for Burger King, DeBeers diamonds, Chewels bubble gum, and Best Foods/Hellmann's mayonnaise. Early screen appearances, credited as Lisa Shue, came in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) and Somewhere, Tomorrow (1983).

Her feature-film debut came in 1984 opposite Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid, in which she played Ali Mills, a high-school cheerleader and the lead character's love interest. That same year she became a series regular on the short-lived television drama Call to Glory, a role she held through 1985. In 1986 she appeared alongside Terence Stamp in the British horror film Link, and in 1987 she starred in the Disney Sunday Movie television film Double Switch before headlining Adventures in Babysitting with co-star George Newbern. Shue starred opposite Tom Cruise in Cocktail in 1988, and the following year appeared in the short film Body Wars, used in an ATLAS Simulator attraction at Epcot's Wonders of Life Pavilion until 2007. She also auditioned for the Ione Skye role in Say Anything... (1989), reaching the final round of consideration alongside Jennifer Connelly.

Shue took on the role of Jennifer Parker in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Back to the Future Part III (1990), replacing Claudia Wells, who had declined to reprise the role due to her mother's illness. The two sequels were filmed back to back, with Shue appearing prominently in Part II and in bookend sequences in Part III. Around this period, her older brother William died in an accident during a family holiday, and Shue has noted that accepting the supporting Jennifer Parker role allowed her time to cope with that loss.

In May 1990, Shue made her Broadway debut in Some Americans Abroad at Lincoln Center. The following year she appeared in two film comedies, The Marrying Man with Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin, and Soapdish alongside Sally Field, Robert Downey Jr., Kevin Kline, Cathy Moriarty, and Whoopi Goldberg. She returned to Broadway in 1993 to perform in Tina Howe's production of Birth and After Birth. Between 1992 and 1994 she also took on supporting roles in the comedy Twenty Bucks, the noir thriller The Underneath, the romantic comedy Heart and Souls, and a guest appearance on Dream On.

The defining role of Shue's career came in 1995, when she starred as a prostitute opposite Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas. The performance earned her nominations for the Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award for Best Actress, and she won Best Actress honors from the Independent Spirit Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics. Subsequent credits included The Trigger Effect (1996), Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1996) alongside Billy Crystal, Demi Moore, Robin Williams, and Stanley Tucci, the spy remake The Saint (1997) opposite Val Kilmer, the noir thriller Palmetto (1998) with Woody Harrelson, Cousin Bette (1998) with Jessica Lange, and Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man (2000) with Kevin Bacon. In 1999 she played the title role in Molly, portraying an autistic young woman placed in the care of her bachelor brother, played by Aaron Eckhart.

Later film credits include Leo (2002) with Joseph Fiennes and Dennis Hopper, Mysterious Skin (2004) opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hide and Seek (2005) with Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, Dreamer (2005) again with Fanning and Kurt Russell, Piranha 3D (2010), Battle of the Sexes (2017), Death Wish (2018), and Greyhound (2020). In 2007, Shue produced Gracie alongside her brothers Andrew and John; her husband Davis Guggenheim also produced and directed. Shue played the mother of the main character, whose story was loosely based on her own experiences as the only girl on a boys' soccer team, and Andrew appeared as the soccer coach. The film was also conceived in part as a tribute to their late brother William, who had been captain of his high school soccer team.

On television, Shue joined the cast of the CBS procedural CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in 2012, playing forensic specialist Julie Finlay through 2015. Beginning in 2018 she took on the role of Ali Mills in the Netflix martial arts series Cobra Kai, a continuation of The Karate Kid, with her involvement extending through 2025. She also portrayed Madelyn Stillwell in the Amazon Prime Video superhero series The Boys from 2019 to 2020, reprising the character in the animated series The Boys Presents: Diabolical in 2022 and the spin-off series Gen V in 2023. She led the Netflix dramedy series On the Verge in 2021. Earlier in her television career, Shue starred in the 2001 ABC film Oprah Winfrey Presents: Amy and Isabelle, playing a mother who discloses her dark past to her teenage daughter.