Elisabeth Shue (born October 6, 1963) is an Academy Award-nominated American film actress.
Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware, into a well-heeled and well-educated family and grew up in Bergen and Essex counties in New Jersey. Her parents divorced while she was in the fourth grade. Her father, who was active in Republican politics, once unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey. Shue graduated from Columbia High School, in Maplewood, New Jersey, and attended Wellesley College and Harvard University, from which she withdrew to pursue her acting career. She returned to Harvard, 15 years after withdrawing, to finish her degree in Government in 2000. [1]
During her studies at Columbia and after her parents divorce, she found a way to make extra money by acting in television commercials. A state junior level gymnast, Shue became a common sight in ads for Burger King, DeBeers diamonds, and Hellman's mayonnaise
In 1984, she co-starred in The Karate Kid as the onscreen girlfriend of Ralph Macchio, and had a role as the teenage daughter of a military family in the short-lived series Call to Glory. She continued her acting work with Adventures in Babysitting, her first starring role, Cocktail, Soapdish, and The Marrying Man, as well as playing the role of Jennifer Parker in the two Back to the Future sequels. (Claudia Wells played Jennifer Parker in the original Back to the Future movie.) Trying to shed her girl-next-door image, Shue took a chance on a low-budget, high-risk project called Leaving Las Vegas. Her portrayal of a prostitute mixed up with a suicidal alcoholic played by Nicholas Cage earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Since then, she has starred in The Saint, Deconstructing Harry, Palmetto, and Hollow Man.
Shue is married to Davis Guggenheim, director of the HBO TV series Deadwood. They have a son, Miles William (b. November 11, 1997), and two daughters, Stella Street (b. March 19, 2001) and Agnes Charles (b. June 18, 2006).
Her brother is Melrose Place actor Andrew Shue. Another brother, Wilbur, died at age 26 in a freak accident while in Maine on family vacation in 1988; as she, Andrew, and a third brother, John, looked on helplessly, the jury-rigged space trolley that Wilbur was on broke, causing him to fall onto the banks of a swimming hole. Son Miles's second name is inspired by Wilbur