Fairuza Balk

Fairuza Balk
Fairuza Balk, January 2006
Born	Fairuza Alejandra Feldthouse May 21, 1974 (1974-05-21) (age 36) , U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1983–present

Fairuza Alejandra Balk (born May 21, 1974) is an American film actress. She made her theatrical film debut as Dorothy Gale in Disney's Return to Oz. She has also appeared in The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Craft, American History X and Personal Velocity: Three Portraits.

Early life

Balk was born as Fairuza Alejandra Feldthouse in Point Reyes, California.^[1] Her mother, Cathryn Balk, is of Irish and French descent and has studied, performed, and taught the ethnic and traditional dance forms of many countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Morocco and Spain.^[2] Her father, Solomon Feldthouse, is of Cherokee Native and Roma gypsy descent. He was one of the founding members of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Kaleidoscope and also a traveling folk musician.^[3] He was born in Pingree, Idaho and moved to Turkey at age 10, where he lived for six years and learned Greek, Turkish and Persian music.^[4] Fairuza's name is the Turkish equivalent^[5] of the Arabic version "Fairouz" of the Persian name "Firoozeh", meaning "Turquoise, Victory, or Precious One".

Fairuza lived in Cloverdale with her mother, until age two. They then moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where she began acting at age six. They moved from London to Paris for another role. They remained there for six months returning to Vancouver. Fairuza then moved to Los Angeles upon signing to do The Craft.

Career

It was during the time Fairuza was spending in London that she was selected by Walt Disney Productions to star as Dorothy Gale in Return to Oz, the loose sequel to MGM's 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz. It was not her debut role; that role had been in a television movie titled The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, produced in 1983. However, it was the one that brought her attention as an actress. The role led to other minor roles, including that of Mildred Hubble in the comedy The Worst Witch, and in 1988 she moved to Paris to work on Valmont with Miloš Forman. By 1989 she was back in Vancouver, where she attended high school. However, she soon decided to take correspondence courses instead and went back to Hollywood, where she gained increasing notice as an actress. In 1992 she was awarded an Independent Spirit Award as best actress for her performance in the Allison Anders film Gas Food Lodging.

In 1996, she appeared in a lead role in The Craft, in which her character formed a teenage coven with characters portrayed by Neve Campbell, Rachel True and Robin Tunney.

Balk has continued to find roles. She co-starred in The Island of Dr Moreau in 1996, gave a performance as a neo-Nazi opposite Edward Norton in American History X in 1998, and was featured in The Waterboy, alongside Adam Sandler, in 1998. Since 2000, she has appeared in over half a dozen movies. She has also done voice work for animated films and video games, including Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Personal life

Balk lives in Hollywood, California, and has an apartment in New York City. Outside her career, her interests include writing poetry and fiction, playing guitar and violin, singing, and dancing. Over the years, she has been romantically involved with a number of well-known men, including British actor David Thewlis, who appeared with her in The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1996 and in American Perfekt in 1997, as well as C. M. Talkington, the director and writer of the cult classic Love and a .45.

Filmography

References

External links

• Fairuza Balk at the Internet Movie Database
• Fairuza Balk at Allmovie