Jorja Fox
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| Jorja Fox | |
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 Jorja Fox on the set of CSI, March 2004 |
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| Born | Jorja-An Fox July 7, 1968  New York, New York, USA |
| Other name(s) | Jorjan Fox |
| Years active | 1989-present |
| Official website | |
Jorja-An Fox (born July 7, 1968, in New York, New York), is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her work as Sara Sidle in the hit CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and for starring in two other successful television dramas, ER, and The West Wing.
In 2003, she was ranked #80 in Stuff magazine's list of the 103 sexiest women. She is annually nominated for PETA's "World's Sexiest Vegetarian".
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Fox is the youngest child of Canadian Montreal-born parents, and was raised on a narrow barrier island in Melbourne Beach, Florida. She describes herself as being overweight while growing up, with a prominent gap between her teeth.[1] By her twenties, neither her wisdom teeth nor braces had appreciably helped, and Fox said "forget it."[2]
After attending Melbourne High School for two years, she began a modeling career after winning a local contest. She subsequently enrolled as a drama student at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York, under the tutelage of actor William Hickey.
[edit] Career
After appearing in several minor films and TV series, including a 1993 episode of Law & Order, Fox entered the limelight in 1996 when she joined the hit NBC television series ER, as the no-nonsense vegetarian and lesbian medical intern Dr. Maggie Doyle.
Playing up that fame, Fox appeared on the coming out episode of Ellen ("The Puppy Episode Part 2", 30 April 1997).
In 1999, she was cast as Secret Service Agent Gina Toscano on NBC's series The West Wing, where she starred for one season.
Fox has appeared in the films Velocity Trap, Food for the Heart and she also appeared briefly in Memento, playing Guy Pearce's wife.
In 2000, she became one of the characters on the CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, in which she portrayed a Las Vegas forensic scientist named Sara Sidle. She announced that the show's 2007-2008 season would be her last. On 2007-11-15, the episode "Goodbye and Good Luck," marked the character's final regular appearance in an episode of CSI.
On May 22, 2008, TV Guide's Michael Ausiello reported that Jorja Fox will be returning to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in the ninth-season premiere. The episode is set to air September 25th, 2008.
She is the co-founder of Honeypot Productions, an independent avant-garde theatre company in Los Angeles. The company has produced five original plays, four of them written by Fox. The fourth play, Lovely Stanley, is a comedic romp about the women's bowling circuit.[3] Her friend and HoneyPot co-founder Heather Reid wrote Dear Bernard, which Fox helped produce.
Fox is also a musician: she plays guitar (badly, she says) and recently purchased a drum kit. She also sings and writes songs, most notably the song "Lullabye" for the movie Traveling Companion, as well as the song "Satellite" which she published on her official web site. Jorja and CSI co-star Marg Helgenberger sang "Stand by Me" as a duet for What a Pair 4!!, an annual charity event to raise money for breast cancer research.
She currently resides in Los Angeles with her dog Ali and two cats, Rumplestiltskin and Sid Poitier.
[edit] Personal life
Her name is pronounced as "Georgia." She is most often credited as Jorja Fox, but has also been credited as "Jorjan Fox." Emily Procter, one of Fox's friends and a co-star in Forever Fabulous, calls her "Horha", the Spanish pronunciation of Jorja's name, as a nickname.[4]
[edit] Activism
Fox is a supporter of the Human Rights Campaign[5] and has been a dedicated vegetarian since the age of 20, working with PETA to help promote vegetarianism.[6] She has a purse named after her by the Montréal company Matt & Nat, which designs vegan purses.[7]
[edit] Controversy
She and CSI co-star George Eads were fired from the show in 2004. Fox had allegedly failed to submit a letter to CBS confirming that she would be on time for shooting. The disputes were resolved in just over a week, and the two were rehired by CBS; however, neither actor's salary was raised, in spite of other cast members receiving raises. It was also reported that of the two, Fox was approached first to resume her contract with CSI, but she refused until Eads was rehired as well.[8]
On April 18, 2007, TV Guide began reporting that Fox may not be returning for the eighth season of CSI, having not yet signed a new contract.[9] The season finale turned out to be a cliffhanger involving her character, Sara Sidle.[10] The New York Post reported that Fox did not show up to film the finale because of ongoing issues over her employment.[11] Neither CBS nor Jorja's agent have confirmed the allegations.
In September 2007, after rumors emerged about Fox's departure from the show,[12] an online forum called "Your Tax Dollars At Work", that has about 15,000 members, started a campaign to keep Sara Sidle on CSI, the campaign (called Dollars for Sense) includes mailing the show's producers a dollar so as to keep Fox on the show. With the help of donations, the campaign also organized plane flyovers, on Tuesdays and Thursdays of October's two first weeks, over the Universal Studios, in California, where CSI is filmed. The banners read"Keep Jorja Fox on CBS".[13][14]
On October 15, 2007, Fox told Entertainment Weekly that she left CSI, saying that she wanted a break "from the commitment of a weekly television series."[15] At her request, the money collected during the "Dollars for Sense" campaign will be donated to CASA, an organization dedicated to aiding foster children.
Recently, TV Guide reported that Jorja Fox has signed a deal to return for CSI's ninth season as a guest star.[16]
[edit] Producer
Since leaving CSI, Jorja Fox has produced the musical Stay Forever: The Life and Music of Dusty Springfield, about the musician Dusty Springfield. [17]
[edit] Partial filmography
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[edit] References
- ^ Stuff magazine, 2002
- ^ People magazine, 2003
- ^ Cast Biographies
- ^ Evelyn Teo (2005-09-04). Procter prospers. www.star-ecentral.com. Retrieved on 2007-11-24.
- ^ jorjafox.org
- ^ GoVeg.com
- ^ matt & nat
- ^ "CSI Rehires Fox; Eads Waits to Hear"
- ^ Ask Ausiello
- ^ "Channel your energy for what May come during television sweeps month"
- ^ New York Post
- ^ Ausiello Report Blog | TVGuide.com
- ^ http://www.dollarforsense.com
- ^ MSN TV Blog: Want to Keep Jorja Fox On 'CSI'?
- ^ Lynette Rice (2007-10-15). Jorja Fox makes it official: She's leaving 'CSI'. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved on 2007-10-15.
- ^ http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/TVNews/Articles/080523_casting_411_DW
- ^ Julio Martinez (2008-02-10). Stay Forever: The Life and Music of Dusty Springfield. www.variety.com. Retrieved on 2008-02-28.
