Point Break

Background:

An award-nominating American actress of film and television hailed from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Lori Petty made first big impression to moviegoers as Keanu Reeves' surfer instructor on “Point Break” (1991) after having a memorable scene-stealing role on the comedy “Cadillac Man” (1990). She attained additional notices with her fine supporting performances in such films as the box office hit “A League of Their Own” (1992), the well-liked “Free Willy” (1993), John Singleton's “Poetic Justice” (1993), the Pauly Shore comedy “In the Army Now” (1994) and the neglected thriller“The Glass Shield” (1994) before emerging as a cult icon in the disastrous comic-book adaptation “Tank Girl” (1995). The crop-headed, hard-bitten actress has since acted in several B-level thrillers, including “Countdown” (1996), “The Arrangement” (1999), “Firetrap” and “Route 666” (both 2001), and in the musical “Prey for Rock & Roll” (2003), the crime/comedy “The Karate Dog” (2004), the drama “Broken Arrows” (2007) and the sport-themed “Chasing 3000” (2008). She stepped into the director's chair for the 2001 film “Horrible Accident,” which she also co-wrote and starred.

In the small screen since the mid-1980s, Petty has appeared as guest star in a number of TV series, including “The Twilight Zone,” “Miami Vice,” “Profiler” “Star Trek: Voyager,” “ER,” “CSI: NY,” and for her role as Joyce Bradovich in an episode of “NYPD Blue” (2003), she picked up a Prism nomination. She has also had regular roles in such short-lives series as “The Thorns” (1988), “Booker” (1989-1990), “Lush Life” (1996) and “Brimstone” (1998-1999), and voiced the supervillain Livewire of “Superman: The Animated Series” (1997) and “Batman: The Animated Series” (1998).

A former graphic designer in Nebraska, Petty is an skilled artist and known as the creator of the alternative clothing line “Lawd Knows.” She also designs Positive Clothing via Internet and retail shops. Petty is a vegetarian and has two tattoos on her wrists.

Graphic Artist

Childhood and Family:

Lori Lee Petty was born on October 14, 1963, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The daughter of a Pentacostal pastor, she spent her early years traveling the Unites States with her religious father. She attended North High School in Sioux City, Iowa and graduated in 1981. While there, she became the first female editor of the high school newspaper and participated in the yearbook and the debate team. An ambitious teen, Lori found work as a graphic designer in Omaha, Nebraska for several years before switching her focus to acting. She moved to New York City to take acting classes and later to Los Angeles to get more opportunities.

Tank Girl

Career:

An active high school student, Lori Petty decided to pursue an acting career after spending several years in Omaha Nebraska where she worked as a graphic designer. Making her professional debut as a hooker in a 1985 episode of “The Equalizer,” the Chattanooga, Tennessee native went on to land guest starring roles in “The Twilight Zone” (1986), “Stingray” (1987), “Miami Vice” (1988) and a recurring role in “Head of the Class” (1987) before graduating to regular roles in the short-lived comedy “The Thorns” (1988), in which Petty played the supporting role of Cricket, opposite Adam Biesk and Kelly Bishop. Her television movie debut was in Richard Rothstein's “Bates Motel” (1987), where she was cast as Willie, a dotty teenage runaway. The horror/drama was slackly adapted from the Alfred Hitchcock “Psycho” series. She spent the rest of the decade working in such TV projects as the films “Police Story: Monster Manor” (1988) and “Perry Mason: The Case of the Musical Murder” (1989), the episodes of the series “Freddy's Nightmares” (1988) and “Alien Nation” (1989), and gained a little notice as a lippy secretary named Diane in the Fox brief-lived drama series “Booker” (1989-1990), starring Richard Grieco.

Apart from her performance in “Booker,” Petty was largely ignored until the early 1990s that viewers started to really paying attention to the emerging actress. Following an unforgettable supporting turn as a hideous Cyndi Lauper aspirant, Lila, in the Robin Williams/Tim Robbins comedy “Cadillac Man” (1990), she rose to fame playing Tyler Ann Endicott, the surfer girlfriend of Keanu Reeves, on the Kathryn Bigelow-helmed action/thriller “Point Break ” (1991), which also starred Patrick Swayze. Her next big screen outing in the Penny Marshall blockbuster hit “A League of Their Own” (1992) further garnered Petty attention when she practically stole the spotlight from such burdensome as Geena Davis and Madonna with her fine acting as Kit Keller, the impolite baseball-playing sister of Davis.

Petty's growing status was well-verified in the following years when she landed a famous supporting role as sympathetic animal trainer Rae Lindley on the highly successful family film “Free Willy” (1993), about the friendship between a 3-ton-orca whale and a 12-year-old boy, a small part in another high-profile movie, “Poetic Justice” (1993), directed by John Singleton, and was cast along side Pauly Shore in the comedy “In the Army Now” (1994), which saw her playing Christine Jones, the exclusive female enlistee. By this period, she created a reputation as a provocative and cracked performer and was difficult to cast. Originally cast in the leading role of Lt. Lenina Huxley in Sylvester Stallone's “Demolition Man” (1993), she had differences towards the direction of the character that led producer Joel Silver replaced her with Sandra Bullock.

After giving a strong dramatic performance as a lonesome female cop in the little-seen thriller “The Glass Shield” (1994), Petty enjoyed a boost when she finally had the opportunity to star in her first movie, “Tank Girl” (1995). Defeating the likes of Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and Emily Lloyd, she won the title role of the eccentric cartoon heroine in the action/comedy and became a cult symbol. She followed it up with a costarring role opposite Yuki Amami in the crime flop “Countdown” (1996), but soon rebounded in the important role of Georgia “George” Sanders on the sitcom “Lush Life” (1996), opposite Karyn Parsons. The show, however, only had a short life and was canceled after only four episodes.

Next up for Petty, she played Robin Poole on “Profiler” (2, episodes, 1997), provided the voice of Livewire the supervillain in “Superman: The Animated Series” (2 episodes, 1997) and “The New Batman Adventures” (1 episode, 1998), as well as appeared as Noss in an episode of “Star Trek: Voyager” (1999). She also had a regular role on the short-lived horror/thriller series “Brimstone” (1998-1999), as Max, and supporting roles in the independent film “Clubland” (1999), for director Mary Lambert, and the B-level thriller “The Arrangement” (1999).

2001 saw Petty make her directorial debut with “Horrible Accident,” which she also co-penned with Mitch Hara. She also starred in the film as Six, while Hara portrayed her friend, Sonny. The same year, she also supported Thomas Jefferson Byrd and Brandon Quintin Adams in the indie-drama “MacArthur Park” and acted in such unsuccessful thrillers as “Firetrap” and “Route 666.” She appeared as Shane in an episode of the popular NBC medical series “ER” (2002) and was nominated for a Prism in the category of Performance in a Drama Series Episode for her guest role as Joyce Bradovich on “NYPD Blue” (2003). In the musical drama “Prey for Rock & Roll” (2003), she costarred along side Gina Gershon and Drea de Matteo as Faith, a part of the punk rock band Clam Dandy.

2004-2006 found Petty in “The Karate Dog,” a crime/comedy starring Jon Voight, Simon Rex and Jaime Pressly, the horror “Cryptid,” in which she starred as Dr.Lean Carlin. In addition, she made guest appearances in the series “Line of Fire,” “CSI: NY” and “Masters of Horror.” More recently, she costarred as Erin in the Reid Gershbein drama “Broken Arrows” (2007), was featured as first murderer in the Scott Anderson adaptation of William Shakespeare's “Richard III” (2008) and portrayed Deputy Fryman on the sport-themed “Chasing 3000” (2008), starring Ray Liotta and Jay Karnes.

45-year-old Petty will appear as a bartender in the drama film “Coming Soon” (2008), written and directed by Steven Tanenbaum. Some of her costars in the forthcoming projects are Cara Seymour, James McCaffrey and Kevin Breznahan.

Awards:
---