Gretchen Mol

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Gretchen Mol


Height	168 cm (5 ft 6in )
Birth	November 8 1972
Hair color	Blonde
Nationality	American

Gretchen Mol (born November 8, 1972) is an American actress.

1 Early life and career
2 Film roles
3 Television
4 Stage
5 Trivia
6 Partial filmography
7 Notes
8 External links

[edit] Early life and career

She was born in Deep River, Connecticut where her mother is an artist and her father is a school principal. She attended The American Musical and Dramatic Academy and graduated from the William Esper Studio. After summer stock in Vermont, she took a job for a while as an usher at Angelika Film Center. She was living in a Hell's Kitchen walk-up when she was noticed by a talent agent who spotted her working as a hat check girl at Michael's Restaurant in New York. ^[1] Her first acting job was in a Coca-Cola commercial. In 1994 Gretchen was spotted by Photographer Davis Powell who photographed Gretchen in central park, replacing her unrepresentative portfolio with stunning Black & White images which landed her on the cover of W magazine within weeks and forshadowed Gretchens "It Girl" and "Bettie Page" looks. Shortly after this Gretchen ended her brief modeling career and with the help of her agent Larry Taub of the Wiliam Morris Agency, in 1998 she appeared in several notable films including Rounders, starring Matt Damon and Woody Allen's Celebrity opposite Leonardo Di Caprio.

In 1998 that she also came to prominence and notoriety when she was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. Her appearance was both a triumph and a failure, as her titilating image became iconic, while her movies bombed. Dubbed the "It girl" of the Nineties by the magazine, her career did not live up to the hype. Her early success was not sustained and she faced several lean years before her notable comeback with The Notorious Bettie Page in 2006. Interviewed by the Associated Press in Baltimore in December 2006, she commented about maintaining her confidence as an actor: "It is an ongoing struggle. Confidence is something that sometimes you have and sometimes you don't. And the older you get, hopefully, the more you have some tools to at least fake it." ^[2]

[edit] Film roles

While her major roles have been sporadic, Gretchen Mol has appeared in more than thirty feature films. And though the films have often been small, she has worked for a number of important directors. Her first role was in Spike Lee's overlooked film, Girl 6. She said of this role, "I was auditioning for Guiding Light and I was happy I got a Spike Lee movie, which was a tiny part, but all of a sudden I had Spike Lee on my resume. I didn't audition for day player anymore."^[3]

New York filmmaker Abel Ferrara then took notice of her and she appeared in two of his movies, The Funeral (1996) and New Rose Hotel (1998). She had a small role as a girlfriend in in Donnie Brasco which appeared in 1998. By now, however, she was being typecast as "the girlfriend," which she attempted to challenge by her role opposite Jude Law in Music From Another Room (1998), a romantic comedy. Unfortunately, nobody noticed the film.^[4]

[edit] Television

Mol had a small role in the 1996 miniseries Dead Man's Walk, based on the Larry McMurtry novel. She also appeared in a few episodes of Spin City. ^[5] She was the star of the short-lived David E. Kelly series girls club (2002), a drama about three women lawyers. The series was not well received and it was cancelled after two episodes. She appeared in two TV remakes of classic films: Picnic (2000), in the role of Madge Owens, and The Magnificent Ambersons as Lucy Morgan (2002). She appeared in a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie in January 2007, starring in The Valley of Light, a story set in post-World War II based on a novel by Terry Kay. ^[6] It was her second Hallmark production. She had also acted in a minor role in Calm at Sunset in 1996.^[7]

[edit] Stage

Her acting career had its beginnings in summer stock in Vermont where she played a variety of roles including Godspell and 110 In The Shade.^[8] In 2004 she spent a year singing and dancing as Roxie in the Broadway production of Chicago.

After a tumultuous three-year courtship^[9] she was married to film director Kip Williams on June 1, 2004.

[edit] Trivia

She went to high school with Broadway actor Peter Lockyer. They performed in school musicals and plays together. Her brother, Jim Mol, also works in the film industry.

[edit] Partial filmography

Year	Title	Role
2007	3:10 to Yuma	Alice Evans
2007	Boy of Pigs	Catherine Caswell
2007	Trainwreck: My Life as an Idiot	Lynn
2007	The Ten	Gloria
2006	The Valley of Light (TV)	Eleanor
2006	Puccini for Beginners	Grace
2006	The Notorious Bettie Page	Bettie Page
2003	The Shape of Things	Jenny
2002	Freshening Up (TV short)	Jannelle
2002	Girls Club (TV series)	Lynn Camden
2002	The Magnificent Ambersons (TV)	Lucy Morgan
2000	Get Carter	Audrey (uncredited)
2000	Attraction	Liz
2000	Picnic (TV)	Madge Owens
1999	Just Looking	Hedy
1999	Forever Mine	Ella Bryce
1999	Sweet and Lowdown	Ellie
1999	Cradle Will Rock	Marion Davies
1999	The Thirteenth Floor	Jane Fuller / Natasha Molinaro'
1998	Bleach	Gwen
1998	Music From Another Room	Anna Swan
1998	New Rose Hotel	Hiroshi's Wife
1998	Finding Graceland	Beatrice Gruman
1998	Rounders	Jo
1998	Celebrity	Vicky
1998	Too Tired to Die	Capri (uncredited)
1997	The Deli	Mary
1997	Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground (TV)	The Wife (segment "Love on the A Train")
1997	The Last Time I Committed Suicide	Mary Greenway
1997	Donnie Brasco	Sonny's girlfriend
1996	Calm at Sunset (TV)	Emily
1996	The Funeral	Helen
1996	Dead Man's Walk (TV mini-series)	Maggie
1996	Girl 6	Girl #12