Shue was born on October 6, 1963,[2] in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Anne Brewster (née Wells), and James William Shue,[3] 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.[4][5]
She grew up in South Orange, New Jersey. Her parents divorced when she was nine.[6][7] Shue's mother is a descendant of Pilgrim leader William Brewster. Her father's family emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania in the early 19th century.[8][9] 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. 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.[10][11]
After graduating from high school, Shue attended Wellesley College. 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. Over a decade later, in 2000, she returned to Harvard and completed her B.A. in government.[12]
Career
1980s and early 1990s
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.[13] 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.
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. 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. 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. 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.[14] 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.
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.[17]
In 1999, Shue starred as the titular Molly as an autistic young woman placed into the care of her unwilling bachelor brother, played by Aaron Eckhart. She played a mother that reveals her dark past to her teenaged daughter in the 2001 ABC movie Oprah Winfrey Presents: Amy and Isabelle. She has since stated she was "extremely proud of that film, which no one ever saw, so it's a good lesson that you do work for yourself and not necessarily for the end result".
In 2007, Shue and her two brothers, Andrew Shue and John Shue, produced Gracie. Her husband Davis Guggenheim also produced and directed. She played the mother of the main character who was loosely based on her own experiences as the only girl on a boys' soccer team. Andrew also appeared as the soccer coach, and her previous co-star from The Trigger EffectDermot Mulroney played the father of the main character. Andrew Shue initially conceived of it as a story about their late brother William, the oldest Shue sibling, who was the captain of the high school soccer team; he died in a freak accident while the family was on a vacation in 1988. The older brother character of Johnny was based on Will.[18][19] She also starred in the little seen First Born (2007) with British actor Steven Mackintosh.
In 2008, Shue starred in Hamlet 2 as a fictionalized version of herself. In the film, she has quit acting to become a nurse and is the favorite actress of Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan). In 2009, Shue appeared on the seventh season of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm as an actress competing with Cheryl Hines's character for the part of George's ex-wife for the Seinfeld reunion. In 2009 she starred alongside Thomas Haden Church in Don McKay.
The year 2012 also marked Shue's return to television in a series regular role when she joined the cast of Season 12's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as Julie Finlay opposite Ted Danson, and replacing Marg Helgenberger. Finlay is the newest CSI, who just finished anger-management classes.[20] She continued in the role until the end of Season 15 where her character's fate was left hanging in the balance, later revealed in the two-part 2015 TV movie wrap-up finale of the entire series to have died (Shue did not appear). During her time on the series, being a massive tennis fan as well as regular tennis player, she jokingly suggested to the producers they have an episode centered around a murder at a tennis tournament. In Season 13 her wish was granted, and her friends and former pros-turned commentators, 18-time Grand Slam champion Chris Evert, three-time Grand Slam winner Lindsay Davenport and two-time mixed doubles Slam champ Justin Gimelstob appeared in an episode as themselves. She also re-united with Back to the Future alumna Lea Thompson, who guest starred in an episode of Season 14.
In 2017, she provided a strong supporting role in Battle of the Sexes, opposite Steve Carell and Emma Stone. She had originally signed on as a tennis adviser for the film which recounts the 1973 showdown between female player Billie Jean King and former men's champ Bobby Riggs.
In 2019, Shue took a leading role in the American superhero drama television series, The Boys, with Karl Urban and Jack Quaid, and will be playing the lead role in the TNT television pilot Constance, playing a corrupt former beauty queen. In the latter she will also be one of the executive producers along with Robert Downey Jr. (whom she previously co-starred with in Soapdish and Heart and Souls) and his wife Susan Downey among others. Constance is not going forward to series so remains to be seen if the pilot will air as a television movie.[21]
Shue starred in Greyhound opposite Tom Hanks, released in 2020. In the same year, Shue reprised her Karate Kid role as Ali Mills for a guest appearance in the sequel series, Cobra Kai, alongside her original co-stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka.
The Karate Kid is a 1984 American martial arts drama film written by Robert Mark Kamen and directed by John G. Avildsen. It is the first installment in the Karate Kid franchise, and stars Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue, and William Zabka. The Karate Kid follows the story of Daniel LaRusso (Macchio), an Italian-American teenager from New Jersey who moves with his widowed mother to the Reseda neighborhood of Los Angeles. There, LaRusso encounters harassment from his new bullies, one of whom is Johnny Lawrence (Zabka), the ex-boyfriend of LaRusso's love interest, Ali Mills (Shue). As a result, LaRusso is taught karate by a handyman and war veteran named Mr. Miyagi (Morita) to help LaRusso defend himself and compete in a karate tournament against his bullies.
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Lea Katherine Thompson is an American actress, singer, dancer, and director.
Adventures in Babysitting is a 1987 American teen comedy film written by David Simkins and directed by Chris Columbus in his directorial debut. It stars Elisabeth Shue, Keith Coogan, Anthony Rapp, and Maia Brewton, and features cameos by blues singer/guitarist Albert Collins and singer-songwriter Southside Johnny Lyon.
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Andrew Shue is an American actor, known for his role as Billy Campbell on the television series Melrose Place (1992–1999). Shue played soccer professionally for several years. He co-founded and served on the board of directors of the global non-profit organization Do Something, and co-founded the social networking website CafeMom.
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