Rebecca De Mornay
De Mornay in 1986
Born	Rebecca Jane Pearch 1958 or 1959 (age 64–65)[1] Santa Rosa, California, U.S.
Other names	Rebecca George
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1975, 1981–present
Spouse	Bruce Wagner ​ ​ (m. 1986; div. 1990)​
Children	2
Parent	Wally George (father)
Relatives	Eugenia Clinchard (grandmother)

Rebecca De Mornay (born Rebecca Jane Pearch; August 29, c. 1958/1959)^{[1][lower-alpha 1]} is an American actress. Her breakthrough film role came in 1983, when she starred as Lana in Risky Business. De Mornay is also known for her roles in The Slugger's Wife (1985), Runaway Train (1985), The Trip to Bountiful (1985), Backdraft (1991), and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992).

Her other film credits include The Three Musketeers (1993), Never Talk to Strangers (1995), Identity (2003), Lords of Dogtown, Wedding Crashers (both 2005), and Mother's Day (2010). On television, she starred as Wendy Torrance in the miniseries adaptation of The Shining (1997), and as Dorothy Walker on Marvel's Jessica Jones (2015–19).

Early life

De Mornay was born Rebecca Jane Pearch in Santa Rosa, California, the daughter of Julie^[7] and Wally George (né George Walter Pearch), a disc jockey and later television host.^[8] According to the Associated Press, De Mornay's age is the subject of dispute,^[2] though it was announced in Santa Rosa's Press Democrat that her parents had a daughter born on August 29, 1959, at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.^[9] Her paternal grandmother was vaudeville performer and child film actress Eugenia Clinchard.^[10]

Her parents divorced in 1960, and she took the surname of her stepfather, Richard De Mornay, after her mother married him in 1961. She spent her early years in Pasadena, California, until her stepfather died of a stroke on March 2, 1962, aged 48.^[11] After his death, De Mornay and her half-brother Peter were raised by her mother, who relocated the family to Europe, where they lived in several different locations.^[12] She attended the independent Summerhill School in Leiston, Suffolk, England^[13] before completing her studies at a private high school in Germany.^[12]

Career

De Mornay in 1987

By the time she was 16, De Mornay had an agent who was selling her songs to German rock & roll musicians, and she had written the theme song for a kung fu movie called Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death (1975).^[14][15] In 1980,^[12] De Mornay returned to the United States and enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Institute to study acting.^[16] She made her film debut with a small part in Francis Ford Coppola's 1981 film One from the Heart, which starred her real-life partner at the time, Harry Dean Stanton.^[17][18] Her star-making role came two years later in Risky Business (1983), as a call girl who seduces a high-school student played by Tom Cruise. In 1985, she played the title role in The Slugger's Wife opposite Michael O'Keefe, and co-starred in The Trip to Bountiful and Runaway Train, both of which were nominated for several Academy Awards. That same year, she appeared with Starship's Mickey Thomas in the music video for the song "Sara". The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on March 15, 1986.

She also appeared in Roger Vadim's provocative 1988 remake of And God Created Woman, and as the wife of Kurt Russell's character in Ron Howard's Backdraft (1991). In 1990 she enacted the role of a USAF Captain pilot in HBO's successful Cold War film By the Dawn's Early Light. One of De Mornay's most commercially successful films was the thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, released in 1992. She starred as a defense lawyer in Sidney Lumet's murder drama Guilty as Sin (1993) with Don Johnson. Then she appeared in the 1995 drama film Never Talk to Strangers opposite Antonio Banderas, for which she was also the executive producer.

In 2003, she guest-starred as primary antagonist in the first two episodes of season 2 of Boomtown. In 2004, she guest-starred as attorney Hannah Rose for the last few episodes of The Practice and the following year, had a brief role alongside Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers. De Mornay also starred in the 2007 drama American Venus.^[2]

In June 2007, she appeared in the HBO series John from Cincinnati with a starring role as matriarch of a troubled Imperial Beach, California, surfing family and the grandmother/guardian of a teen surfer on the brink of greatness. She appeared in Darren Lynn Bousman's Mother's Day (2010).

In 2012, De Mornay played the role of Finch's mom in the movie American Reunion where she portrayed an attractive older woman and a love interest of Stifler. From 2015 to 2019, she appeared in Jessica Jones as Trish Walker's abusive mother.^[19]

Personal life

De Mornay in 2006

De Mornay dated actor Harry Dean Stanton in the early 1980s. They met in 1981 on the set of One from the Heart^[20] and dated until De Mornay and Tom Cruise began an affair while filming Risky Business in 1982.^[21] De Mornay and Cruise broke up in 1985.

De Mornay married writer Bruce Wagner on December 16, 1986; they divorced in 1990.^[22]

De Mornay subsequently dated and was briefly engaged to singer Leonard Cohen.^[23][24] She co-produced Cohen's 1992 album The Future, which is also dedicated to her.

De Mornay was in a relationship with actor turned sportcaster Patrick O'Neal. They have two daughters together.^[1][25]

Filmography

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

• "The Key to Rebecca". Saturday Review. 12 (1): 30–34. January–February 1986.
• Tykus, Michael J. (2000). "Rebecca de Mornay". Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television. Vol. 29. Gale Research Co. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-7876-3188-8.
• Room, Adrian (2010). "Rebecca de Mornay". Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins (5th ed.). McFarland. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-7864-4373-4.
• Segrave, Kerry; Martin, Linda (1990). "Rebecca de Mornay". The Post-Feminist Hollywood Actress: biographies and filmographies of stars born after 1939. McFarland & Co. pp. 265–269. ISBN 978-0-89950-387-5.
• Aylesworth, Thomas G.; Bowman, John S.; Fairbanks, Douglas (1992). "De Mornay, Rebecca". World Guide to Film Stars. Great Pond. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-56657-007-7.
• Sleeman, Elizabeth (2001). "De Mornay, Rebecca". The International Who's Who of Women 2002 (3rd ed.). Routledge. p. 131. ISBN 978-1-85743-122-3.
• Riggs, Thomas, ed. (2005). "De MORNAY, Rebecca". Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television: A Biographical Guide. Vol. 64. Gale / Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-7876-9037-3.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rebecca De Mornay.

• Rebecca De Mornay at IMDb 
• Rebecca De Mornay at the TCM Movie Database
• Rebecca De Mornay at Rotten Tomatoes