Sheryl Lee

At 56 years old, Sheryl Lee has this physical status:

Sheryl Lynn Lee (born April 22, 1967) is an American film, stage, and television actress.

After studying acting in college, Lee moved to Seattle, Washington, to work in theater, where she was portrayed by David Lynch on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and Fire Walk with Me.

She returned to theater after finishing Twin Peaks, playing Salome opposite Al Pacino in the title role. Astrid Kirchherr in Backbeat (1994), as well as a lead role in the film Mother Night (1996), John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) and the first part of Winter's Bone (2010) include her film roles.

She has appeared on television programs as One Tree Hill (2005–2006) and Dirty Sexy Money (2007–2009).

Laura Palmer appeared in the Showtime revival of Twin Peaks (2017).

Early life

Lee was born in Augsburg, West Germany, to an artist mother and architect father, the first of three children. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado, United States, where she attended Fairview High School (class of 1985). Lee then moved to Pasadena, California, where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then attended the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver and the University of Colorado.

Lee migrated to Seattle, Washington, where she appeared in numerous stage performances and appeared in many commercials over the years. She worked with theater director Mark Jenkins at Seattle's now defunct Empty Space Theater.

Personal life

Lee dated David Duchovny, who was one of her Twin Peaks co-stars. She was married to Jesse Diamond, a photographer and son of singer and songwriter Neil Diamond, at one time. They have a son, Elijah, who was born in 2000.

Lee announced in 2014 that she had been diagnosed with neutropenia, a rare blood disorder.

Lee is also a teacher at UCLA's School of Theatre, Film, and Television. Lee teaches actors, directors, and writers at their "The Actor's Director Workshop" workshop, along with her former Twin Peaks castmate Gary Hershberger (who played Mike Nelson).

Lee is an animal rights and environmental campaigner. In two print advertisements for PETA, she appeared nude.

Lee participated in Project Pink's annual breast cancer awareness campaign in October 2008 to raise funds for breast cancer research.

Lee has also participated in numerous environmental activist organizations and charities in November 2000 to raise concern for biodiversity conservation. In December 2011, Lee advocated for the protection of wolves and promoted the WildEarth Guardians' "Wolves in the American West" campaign.

Lee signed environmental activist Tom Weis' open letter in September 2012, urging President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney to withhold their support for the building of Keystone XL, a pipeline that would move bitumen from Montana to Texas. James Hansen, a climate scientist, and actress Daryl Hannah, Mariel Hemingway, and Ed Begley, Jr. were among the signatories.

Lee performed poems written by herself for the first Annual Special Assembly on Women, Climate Change, and Human Rights, on December 8, 2012.

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Career

In the television series Twin Peaks, Lee's first television appearance was as the deceased Laura Palmer. "Just to be a dead girl," designer David Lynch wanted to bring a local girl from Seattle to "just to be a dead girl." Sheryl Lee, the local girl, ended up being Sheryl Lee. Lynch demanded she audition for him after seeing a publicity snapshot of her in Seattle from one of the plays she was playing at at the time. "No one, not Mark, me, or anyone else, had any idea that she would be able to move or that being dead," she said. The photograph of Lee wrapped in plastic as well as her homecoming queen portrait became one of the show's most enduring and memorable photographs. As Lynch shot Donna Hayward and Laura's home film, he realized that Lee had something special. "She did another scene — the video with Donna on the picnic — and it was the scene that did it." As a result, Sheryl Lee became a semi-regular cast member of the cast, appearing in flashbacks as Laura and Laura, and becoming Laura's cousin Maddy Ferguson later in the series (a role which was reportedly written because Lynch, impressed with her abilities, wanted to give her a fuller role on the show). When she appeared as Glinda the Good Witch in Wild at Heart (1990), she worked with Lynch again.

Laura Palmer also appeared in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which delves into the events leading up to Laura Palmer's death. Although the film itself was a critical and financial loss at the time of its release, Lee was lauded by the critics for her performance, which earned her Best Actress awards at the Independent Spirit Awards and the Saturn Awards. Lee has been dubbed a "scream queen" for her role in Twin Peaks, especially for scenes in the otherworldly Black Lodge.

In 1992, Lee appeared in Salome in the Square Theatre, opposite Al Pacino, as Salome in the Broadway production of Oscar Wilde's Salome in the Circle directed by Robert Allan Ackerman. Suzanne Bertish, Esai Morales, and Arnold Vosloo appeared in the film.

In 1994, she appeared in the film Backbeat, a bio-pic of The Beatles' early life opposite Stephen Dorff. Over the years, Lee appeared in Larry Woods' 1995 film Notes from Underground opposite Helga and Resi Noth, as Helga and Resi Noth in Kurt Vonnegut's 1996 romantic war film Mother Night, based on Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 book of the same name, starred Sandra Woods and Daniel Baldwin, in 1997's 1998 film Vampires opposite James Woods and Daniel Baldwin. She appeared in the 1999 crime drama film Angel's Dance starring Kyle Chandler and Jim Belushi, as Dr. Sarah Church, and in the short lived series L.A. Doctors (1998–1999), which lasted for a single season.

In the 2001 USA Cable film Hitched, Lee starred opposite Anthony Michael Hall as the sweet but vengeful housewife Eve Robbins.

I Love 1990s segment of the BBC's famous I Love 1990s series was broadcast in 2001.

There's rumors that she and Phoebe Augustine, who played Ronette in Twin Peaks, appeared in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001). Many online databases also list them as uncredited in the film, but it's unknown if it's really them or actresses who look like Laura and Ronette, and it hasn't been confirmed in either way.

She appeared in Children on Their Birthdays (2002), based on Truman Capote's short story. Marlene Cadena was played by the actress in the 2003 television series Kingpin opposite Yancey Arias and Bobby Cannavale.

Lee was the first choice for the role of Mary-Alice Young on Desperate Housewives in 2004. This would be the second time she would have played a dead character on a show; sadly, the producers decided that Brenda Strong would have replaced her with Brenda Strong because Lee was not right for the role. Strong spoke out about the casting change for her role, explaining, "I think it was a conceptual shift." There was no doubt that [Lee] did not do anything wrong." They wanted chocolate instead of vanilla, and I happened to be chocolate."

On the third season of the WB Network series One Tree Hill, she starred Ellie Harp, the biological mother of Peyton Sawyer (played by Hilarie Burton), who fights breast cancer. Laura Smithson, the mother of Brian Darling's (Glenn Fitzgerald) illegitimate child, appeared on ABC dramedy Dirty Sexy Money in 2007 and 2008. In a special Twin Peaks-themed episode of Psych titled "Dual Spires," Lee, as well as several other Twin Peaks cast members, appeared in a special Twin Peaks-themed episode of Psych. Sherilyn Fenn (Audou), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Ray Wise (Leland Palmer), Lenny Von Dohlen (Harold Smith), Robyn Lively (Lana Budding Milford), and Catherine E. Coulson (The Log Lady).

In 2010, she appeared in a supporting role in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone (which took top picture at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010). When she learns that her father used their house and land up as a bond for a court appearance, she is devastated. At the Detroit Film Critics Society and Gotham Awards, Lee received two awards for Best Ensemble, as well as many others from the cast. Lee appeared in the 2011 crime drama Texas Killing Fields, starring Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, and Chlo Grace Moretz.

She appeared in the art drama thriller White Bird in a Blizzard (2014), written and directed by Gregg Araki. Lee revealed that she would be back to Twin Peaks for the 2017 limited showtime run in 2015 at the Twin Peaks UK Festival.

In 2016, she appeared in a supporting role in Netflix's Rebirth, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and appeared in a small role as Karen in Café Society, written and directed by Woody Allen. At the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the film made its premiere. Laura Palmer portrayed Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks and Carrie Page in 2017, making it her third appearance in the series. Despite being featured in every one of the 18 episodes, the bulk of her appearance was in an archive film. In the episodes Parts 2, Part 17 and Part 18, new information of her was found. Alley appeared in David Schendel's short film Dead Ink Archive, making it their second collaboration after the 1994 film The Can (which was shot in the late 1980s) starring Alley. Emily Hodges, Lee Hodges, was one of the protagonists in the Teen-Thriller #SquadGoals in 2018.

Lee returned to theater in 2019 after appearing alongside Judd Nelson in Love Letters. She appeared in the play before 1991, as co-stars Luke Perry and Tim Daly.

Laura Palmer's Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks, a new book that follows Laura Palmer's fictional character from Lee's appearance on the television show Twin Peaks, features interviews and a foreword by Lee.

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