Stage Beauty
Claire Catherine Danes was born on April 12th 1979 in New York City. The beautiful and talented actress was cast in the acclaimed television drama My So-Called Life before breaking into films with a role in the acclaimed Little Women.She has done varied work, from the slick and commercial Terminator 3 with Arnold Schwarzenegger, to Baz Luhrmann's avant-garde William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with Leonard DiCaprio. Most recently she was honored with a large number of awards, including a Golden Globe (her second) and an Emmy, for her portrayal of Temple Grandin in the HBO biopic of the same name. She has just finished filming the pilot of a new TV series for Showtime, with Mandy Patinkin. Part of the show was shot in Jerusalem.
Claire has also performed on stage in both experimental productions as a dancer, and in traditional broadway theater.
One of her more offbeat projects was Christina Olson, American Model. It's projects like these that really make me adore Claire for her artistic bravery and non-conformity. She played the part of a crippled girl immortalized in this painting. The piece was modern dance, so having to interpret in dance the life of a girl who suffered from muscular deterioration must have been quite an artistic challenge. I very much regret not seeing the performance, as the critics were very positive. I did see her the next year in her Broadway debut, in a production of Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. I also met her for the first time that night, after the show. She is beautiful, gracious and tiny. Hopefully, she'll return to the stage again someday, and soon.
