Elisabeth Shue

Elisabeth Judson Shue (born October 6, 1963) is an American actress.

Shue was born on October 6, 1963, in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Anne Brewster (née Wells), and James William Shue, a one-time congressional candidate, lawyer, and real estate developer, who was president of the International Food and Beverage Corporation.

Her mother was a vice president in the private banking division of the Chemical Bank Corporation.

She grew up in South Orange, New Jersey.

Her parents divorced when she was nine.

Shue's mother is a descendant of Pilgrim leader William Brewster.

Shue graduated from Columbia High School, in 1981 in Maplewood, New Jersey, where she and Andrew were inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1994.

She has two half-siblings from her father's remarriage, Jenna and Harvey Shue.

After graduating from high school, Shue attended Wellesley College.

She had small parts, credited as Lisa Shue, in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) and Somewhere, Tomorrow (1983) which provided an early starring role for Sarah Jessica Parker.

She is best known for her roles in the films The Karate Kid (1984), Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Cocktail (1988), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Soapdish (1991), The Saint (1997), Hollow Man (2000), Piranha 3D (2010), Battle of the Sexes (2017), Death Wish (2018) and Greyhound (2020).

Shue made her feature film debut in 1984, when she co-starred opposite Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid as Ali Mills, a high school cheerleader and the love interest of Macchio's main character.

She was a series regular as the teenage daughter of a military family in the short-lived television series Call to Glory between 1984 and 1985, which she followed in 1986 starring alongside Terence Stamp in the British horror film Link.

She then transferred to Harvard University in 1985, from which she withdrew to pursue her acting career (she was inspired by a friend to work in television commercials as a way to pay for college) one semester short of earning her degree.

In 1987 Shue appeared in the television movie Double Switch (part of the Disney Sunday Movie series), co-starring with George Newbern, who would go on to support her in her first star vehicle, the hugely popular Adventures in Babysitting, in the same year.

In 1988, Shue starred in Cocktail as the love interest of Tom Cruise's lead character.

Other roles followed, including appearing as Jennifer Parker in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Back to the Future Part III (1990), where she replaced Claudia Wells who declined to reprise the role from Back to the Future because of a family illness.

It was around this time her older brother, William, died in an accident on a family holiday.

Although her career was on the rise with her playing lead roles, Shue elected to take on the smaller supporting role of Jennifer in these sequels to allow her to deal with her family loss.

The sequels were filmed back to back, and she featured prominently in Part II, appearing in bookend pieces in the third part of the trilogy.

She auditioned for the Ione Skye role in Say Anything... (1989), being a runner-up along with Jennifer Connelly.

In May 1990, Shue made her Broadway debut in Some American Abroad at the Lincoln Center.

The following year she returned to cinema where she appeared in the comedies The Marrying Man with Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin, and Soapdish with Sally Field, Robert Downey Jr., Kevin Kline, Cathy Moriarty, and Whoopi Goldberg.

Between 1992 and 1994 she appeared in a variety of supporting roles in both film and television.

These included the comedy Twenty Bucks (reuniting with Christopher Lloyd from Back to the Future), noir thriller The Underneath, a guest appearance in Dream On, and the romantic comedy Heart and Souls (reuniting with Robert Downey Jr.).

She also returned to Broadway in 1993, performing in Tina Howe's production of Birth and After Birth.

For her performance in Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Shue was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress as well as a BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Award.

Although often cast as a girl-next-door type, in a career-defining role she starred as a prostitute in the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage.

The role earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

She was also nominated for a BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actress, and won Best Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards and the National Society of Film Critics Awards.

Her career flourished after her Oscar nomination, landing her diverse roles.

She starred in The Trigger Effect in 1996.

Over a decade later, in 2000, she returned to Harvard and completed her B.A. in government.

During her studies at Columbia High School and after her parents' divorce, Shue began acting in television commercials, becoming a common sight in advertisements for Burger King, also featuring future stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lea Thompson (whom Elisabeth would later co-star with in both television and film), DeBeers diamonds, Chewels bubble gum, and Best Foods/Hellmann's mayonnaise.

The following year she starred in the short film Body Wars, which was used at Epcot in an ATLAS Simulator attraction in the Wonders of Life Pavilion until 2007.

On television, she has starred as Julie Finlay in the CBS procedural forensics crime drama thriller CSI: Crime Scene Investigation from 2012 to 2015, Madelyn Stillwell in the Amazon Prime Video series The Boys and The Boys Presents: Diabolical, and reprised her The Karate Kid role in the third season of Cobra Kai.

She currently stars as Anne in the Netflix dramedy series On the Verge.

Her father's family emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania in the early 19th century.

Shue was raised with her three brothers (William, Andrew and John) and was very close to them.

Her younger brother, Andrew, is also an actor, best known for his role as Billy Campbell in the Fox series Melrose Place.