An American actress in the past is named Linda Fiorentino. In 1985, Linda Fiorentino made her acting debut in the coming-of-age drama film Vision Quest. That same year, she also starred in the action movie Gotcha! and made an appearance in the movie After Hours.
Her leading roles in the sensual thriller Jade (1995), the science-fiction action comedy Men in Black (1997), and the fantasy comedy Dogma helped Fiorentino become well-known (1999). She earned the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, the London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year, and was shortlisted for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in the 1994 movie The Last Seduction.
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Table of Contents
Early Life
To an Italian-American family, Linda Fiorentino was born Clorinda Fiorentino in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was born and raised in South Philadelphia before relocating to Washington Township, New Jersey, with her family. Fiorentino attended Washington Township High School there and received his diploma in 1976.
She later moved back to Pennsylvania and enrolled at Rosemont College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1980. After that, Linda Fiorentino attended the Circle in the Square Theater School in New York City to begin his training. She worked as a bartender at Kamikaze nightclub at this time.
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Career
In three major motion pictures in 1985, Linda Fiorentino made her acting debut. The romantic coming-of-age drama “Vision Quest,” based on the Terry Davis novel of the same name, featured her alongside Matthew Modine and told the story of a high school wrestler who falls in love with an aspiring artist. Next, Fiorentino played Sasha Banicek, an international spy, in the action comedy “Gotcha!” alongside Anthony Edwards. She portrayed the eccentric sculptor Kiki Bridges in Martin Scorsese’s black comedy “After Hours,” which was her last movie of 1985.
Linda Florentino won multiple awards for her efforts, including the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. After that, Fiorentino starred in two less popular erotic thrillers, “Bodily Harm” by James Lemmo and “Jade” by William Friedkin. She also had an appearance in the Mark Twain story-based action comedy “Charlie’s Ghost Story.”
In the science fiction thriller “Unforgettable,” which was directed by John Dahl and starred Ray Liotta and Fiorentino, the two collaborated once more. She appeared in the Bill Murray elephant comedy “Larger Than Life” that same year.
1997 also saw Linda Fiorentino appear in “Kicked in the Head” and the hugely successful “Men in Black,” which also starred Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Over the next years, she remained a comedy-heavy celebrity. She co-starred in the crime comedy “Body Count” in 1998 with David Caruso, John Leguizamo, Forest Whitaker, Donnie Wahlberg, and Ving Rhames.
In Kevin Smith’s fantasy comedy “Dogma” the following year, Fiorentino as a worker at an abortion clinic who is tasked with saving the world. She acted in three comedies in 2000: “Where the Money Is” with Paul Newman and Dermot Mulroney, “Ordinary Decent Criminal” with Kevin Spacey, and “What Planet Are You From?” with Greg Kinnear, Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, Ben Kingsley, and John Goodman.
After this, Linda Fiorentino’s filmography considerably slowed down, with just two credits for the rest of the decade: “Liberty Stands Still” and “Once More with Feeling,” both of which were released on direct-to-video.
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Television Career
Linda Fiorentino’s debut television role was in an episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” from 1985; after that, she mainly acted in television movies and miniseries. She appeared in the criminal drama miniseries “The Neon Empire” in 1989 alongside Ray Sharkey.
She played the lead in the HBO sexual drama miniseries “Strangers” a few years later. Following this were the HBO film “Beyond the Law,” with Charlie Sheen and Michael Madsen, and the Showtime television movie “Acting on Impulse,” with C. Thomas Howell and Nancy Allen. Then, in 1994, Linda Fiorentino appeared in “The Desperate Trail,” a TNT television movie, alongside Sam Elliott and Craig Sheffer.
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Personal Life
John Byrum, a director of movies, and Fiorentino previously got married. In 1993, the couple got divorced.
Linda Fiorentino later dated future felon and private investigator Anthony Pellicano in her love life. Fiorentino intended to help Pellicano’s legal team in 2009 while he was facing charges. As Linda Fiorentino was then dating FBI agent Mark Rossini, the case’s prosecutor, this led to an odd conflict. Rossini admitted to breaking into FBI computers without authorization and giving Fiorentino information on Pellicano throughout the case.
Linda Fiorentino gave the information to Pellicano’s attorneys in an effort to help her ex-boyfriend avoid going to jail, despite saying she was using it to conduct research for a future movie. In the end, the plan proved ineffective.
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What To Know About John Byrum
John Byrum worked as a student intern for Jim Henson on early Muppet shows before being hired by Henson to be one of the show’s first writers. Byrum’s talent caught Henson’s attention, and he engaged him to write for him on freelance jobs. After receiving favorable feedback for his original script Inserts, Byrum left New York for Hollywood, where producers and mentors Don Devlin, Tony Bill, and Harry Gittes asked him to write the screenplay for Harry and Walter Go to New York.
After that script was sold for a then-record-breaking sum, Byrum was chosen to pen the screenplay for the Mahogany star vehicle for Diana Ross. In order to work on Mahogany with one of his heroes, director Tony Richardson, he turned down the opportunity to write the script for Jaws. However, Richardson abruptly left the movie mid-production due to a disagreement with producer Berry Gordy of Motown fame. The true drama of Mahogany, according to Berry, was the relationship between Gordy and Ross behind the scenes. Berry took over the directing job.
Inserts, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Harper, Veronica Cartwright, Stephen Davies, and Bob Hoskins, was directed by Byrum. Because Ken Russell sought an American co-writer, Byrum contributed uncredited work to the Valentino script.
Heart Beat, which starred Nick Nolte, John Heard, and Sissy Spacek as Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, and Carolyn Cassady, respectively, was written and directed by Byrum shortly after. Byrum and composer Jack Nitzsche first worked together on this movie, beginning a long friendship and working relationship.
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John Byrum and Mahogany producer Rob Cohen collaborated to produce Scandalous and The Razor’s Edge, a 1984 movie that Byrum directed and was based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel. Bill Murray played Larry Darrell in the movie, which also featured Catherine Hicks, Theresa Russell, Denholm Elliott, and James Keach. The screenplay was co-written by Byrum and Murray.
Critics and viewers had trouble with the movie because they were unwilling to accept Murray in a noncomedic part. Later, the movie developed a cult following, and many fans visited the movie’s foreign places to simulate Larry’s spiritual journey.
After The Razor’s Edge’s commercial disaster, Byrum, who was struggling financially, helmed the silly comedy The Whoopee Boys, starring Michael O’Keefe and Paul Rodriguez. He was the initial director of the 1987 television movie Desperado but left the project in the middle of production.
Middle Ages, starring Peter Riegert, Michael O’Keefe, Amy Brenneman, and William Russ, is about a group of friends attempting to deal with the beginning of their 40s on the North Shore of Chicago. South of Sunset, starring Glenn Frey of The Eagles fame, is about an unconventional Los Angeles detective.
Winnetka Road, starring Josh Brolin, Meg Tilly, Paige Turco, and Ed Begley, Jr., is about the life of Ted Levine played the mayor of a Colorado ski resort in Byrum’s television film Murder in High Places, which also featured a young Lisa Kudrow in one of her early acting performances.
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John Byrum was set to direct the karaoke road trip comedy Duets from his original script when he fell ill with a severe case of Lyme disease that had gone untreated for a very long time. Bruce Paltrow, a friend of Byrum’s, wanted to helm Duets and cast his daughter Gwyneth Paltrow in one of the six ensemble roles.
When his engagement to Paltrow ended, Brad Pitt’s plans to co-star with her fell through, and the movie’s finances once again suffered. Several years later, Scott Speedman, Paul Giamatti, Maria Bello, Andre Braugher, and Huey Lewis all starred in Duets in the part that Pitt had originally intended for them.
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His Personal Life
On June 23, 1992, John Byrum wed the actress Linda Fiorentino. The War at Home, which began production on April 15, 1988, was a collaboration between John Byrum and Fiorentino while they were still dating. The film was never finished after Byrum penned the script, which was partially based on the life of model and actress Edie Sedgwick. After only one year of marriage, the couple filed for divorce in 1993 for unknown reasons. John Byrum was hitched to his present spouse, American screenwriter Karin Reznack, in 1997.
