Madeleine Stowe



Madeleine M. Stowe (born August 18, 1958) is an American actress. She has appeared on stage and television in her early career, before her breakthrough role in the 1987 crime-comedy film Stakeout. She later starred in films Revenge, Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, Blink, Bad Girls, 12 Monkeys, The General's Daughter and We Were Soldiers. Stowe also had a leading role in the independent film Short Cuts, for which she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Stowe had left the movie screen in 2003, and in later several years starred only in two made for television films. In 2011, she began starring as Victoria Grayson, the main antagonist of the ABC drama series Revenge. For performance in show she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress- Television Series Drama in 2012.

Early Life
Stowe, the first of three children, was born at the Queen of Angels Hospital, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and raised in Eagle Rock, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mother, Mireya, had come from a prominent family in Costa Rica. Her father, Robert Stowe, was a civil engineer from a "poor Oregon family". One of Stowe's maternal great-great-grandfathers, politician Jose Joaquin Mora Porras, was younger brother of President Juan Rafael Mora Porras, who governed Costa Rica from 1849 to 1859. Another one of Stowe's maternal great-great-grandfathers was Bruno Carranza, President of Costa Rica in 1870, albeit briefly, as he resigned three months after taking power. His wife, Stowe's great-great-grandmother, Geronima Montealegre, was the sister of President Jose Maria Montealegre Fernandez, who governed Costa Rica from 1959 to 1863. One of Stowe's maternal great-grandfathers was a German immigrant to Costa Rica.

Stowe's father suffered from multiple sclerosis, and she accompanied him to medical treatments.

She originally aspired to become a conert pianist, taking piano lessons between the ages of ten and eighteen. Stowe would later explain that playing the piano was a means of escape from having to socialise with other children her age. Her Russian-born music teacher, Sergei Tarnowsky, had faith in Stowe, even teaching her from his deathbed. Following his death at the age of 92, she quit, later commenting: "I just felt it was time to not be by myself anymore." Stowe went on her first date at the age of eighteen.

Early Years
Stowe studied cinema and journalism at the University of Southern California. Not being especially interested in her classes, she volunteered to do performances at the Solaris, a Beverly Hills theater, where a movie agent saw her in a play and got her several offers of appearances in TV andfilms. In 1978, she made her debut in an episode in the police drama series Baretta, followed by a string of TV work with guest appearances on The Amazing Spider-Man, Barnaby Jones and Little House on the Prairie. In 1978, she played a leading role as Mary in the television movie, The Nativity. She starred in the NBC mini-series The Gangster Chronicles, which starred Brian Benben, her future husband. She also starred in several television films, such as Amazons and Blood & Orchids.

Breakthrough and Film Career
In 1987, Stowe appeared in her first breakthrough role in the feature film Stakeout with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez. The film debuted at No. 1 at the box office. She co-starred with Mark Harmon in the comedy Worth Winning, with Kevin Costner in the 1989 thriller Revenge, and opposite Jack Nicholson in 1990 in The Two Jakes. She played a leading role in the 1991 independent film Closet Land.

In 1992, she appeared opposite Kurt Russell in the crime drama Unlawful Entry. That same year, Stowe played Cora Munro in The Last of the Mohicans, which also starred Daniel Day-Lewis. Her critically acclaimed performance in the film, which grossed more than $75 million worldwide, elevated Stowe from supporting player to an A-list movie star. The next year, director Robert Altman cast Stowe in the award-winning ensemble cast movie Short Cuts, where she gave one of her most acclaimed screen performances as the wife of a compulsively lying and adulterous police officer played by Tim Robbins. She won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award and a Volpi Cup for Best Ensemble Cast for her performance in the movie. She also made a cameo appearance in Stakeout's sequel Another Stakeout. The following year, Stowe played a leading role as a blind musician in the thriller Blink, in the neo-noir thriller China Moon, and in the Western Bad Girls. The year after that, she was a sympathetic psychiatrist in the financially successful and critically lauded science-fiction movie Twelve Monkeys. Stowe received a Saturn Awards nomination for this performance.

In 1994 Stowe was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World." In 1995, Stowe was chosen by Empire as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in Film History".

Stowe postponed her acting career in 1996 to concentrate on motherhood. In 1998, she came back with The Proposition and Playing by Heart, and then The General's Daughter, opposite John Travolta in 1999. In 2001, she starred in the science-fiction box office bomb Impostor. In 2002, she played Julia Moore in the war film We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson, and the box office flop action-comedy Avenging Angelo opposite Sylvester Stallone. In 2003, she starred in the thriller Octane as Senga Wilson, a single mother trying to save her teenaged daughter Natasha (Mischa Barton) from a bizarre cult obsessed with blood and cars.

Recent Years
Stowe had left the screen in 2003 and settled on a Texas ranch outside Fredericksburg, with her daughter May and husband Brian Benben. Stowe returned to television in 2005 with a role in the television film Saving Milly, an adaptation of Morton Kondracke's book of the same name, of a woman diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Stowe starred in the not-picked-up Fox pilot Southern Comfort about a woman who takes over her mobster husband's business when he gets sent to prison. In 2007, she appeared in the recurring role of Dr. Samantha Kohl in Jeff Goldblum's supernatural detective drama Raines on NBC, a mid-season replacement. The series was cancelled after two months. In 2009 she starred in the Lifetime movie, The Christmas Hope.

In 2011, Stowe played Victoria Grayson, the glamorous and powerful matriarch of the Grayson family, on ABC's television drama series Revenge. It debuted on September 21, and was picked up for a full season by ABC on October 13. Stowe's portrayal of the character received critical praise, and she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress- Television Series Drama for this role.

In April 2012, she came in fifth in People magazine's annual Most Beautiful Woman list.

In May 2014, Stowe signed to star opposite Nicolas Cage in the political drama film The Runner. It is her first film since 2003's Octane.

Personal Life
In 1982, Stowe married Brian Benben, whom she met on the set of the NBC mini-series The Gangster Chronicles the previous year. They live near Johnson City, Texas, and have a daughter named May Theodora (born 1996).

In 2008, Stowe travelled to Haiti and helped fund Artists for Peace and Justice. She is on the Board of Directors of the foundation.