Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

Born: 17 November 1958
Where: Oak Park, Illinois

Mary originally harbored a desire for a career as an opera singer. While studying voice in college, Mary spent her summers singing country & western music at Nashville's Opryland. Dropping out of school, she found work in local stage productions in Chicago and continued to audition for more prominent roles.

In the early 1980s she left for the bright lights of New York and took part in the musical West Side Story, before going on to appear in a string of other musical stage roles.

Her first and huge break on the big screen came in 1983 with her role as Al Pacino¿s sister in Scarface. She briefly returned to the stage before making her first foray into television as Benito Mussolini's daughter in the miniseries Musollini: The Untold Story.

Mary more than held her own opposite Paul Newman and Tom Cruise in the The Colour of Money, for which she gained both an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

In the late 1980s early 1990s, Mary catapulted her career and status further with a number of movies for which she was quickly noticed for and respected. Such roles included The Abyss, Class Action and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Not only was her professional career soaring but so too was her personal life, with her marriage to Irish director Pat O'Connor.

Following the huge success of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, she retreated from the spotlight and was only seen in a few unknown films. She took this decision to pick the roles she liked rather than the ones which would draw attention.

In 1999 Mary came back into the public spotlight, with lead roles in My Life So Far where she played Colin Firths wife, and John Sayles Limbo in which she played a determined lounge singer who meets an uncertain fate.

In 2000, she portrayed the only female fishing boat captain, in the feature version of the best-selling nonfiction book The Perfect Storm.