Natasha Lyonne extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Natasha Lyonne
Born	Natasha Braunstein April 4, 1979 (1979-04-04) (age 29) New York City, New York, United States

Natasha Lyonne (born April 4, 1979) is an American film and television actress.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.3 Personal life 1.3.1 Legal troubles 1.3.2 Hospitalization 1.3.3 Recovery and return to acting 2 Filmography 3 References 4 External links

Biography

Early life

Lyonne was born Natasha Braunstein in New York City, the daughter of Yvette Lyonne, a product licensing consultant, and Aaron Braunstein, a native of Brooklyn who worked as a boxing promoter.¹²³ Lyonne grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household and lived in Israel with her family during her childhood;⁴ her maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors.¹⁵ When her parents divorced, Lyonne moved back to New York and lived with her mother and older brother Adam in a one-bedroom apartment.

Lyonne attended several schools. She first attended a private Jewish school at Ramaz in Manhattan. Her mother then moved to Miami, where Lyonne attended and graduated from Miami Country Day School.

Career

Lyonne began acting at an early age with her first role as "Opal" on Pee-wee's Playhouse. She appeared in the 1990 film A Man Called Sarge during the time her family lived in Israel.

Lyonne is perhaps best known for her roles in the first two American Pie films as the wise-cracking Jessica. She has also appeared in more than 30 other movies, including starring roles in the independent films Slums of Beverly Hills and But I'm a Cheerleader. Lyonne also appeared in Party Monster in 2003, a dramatization of the Michael Alig story. As the character Brooke, Lyonne donned a fat suit and dreadlocks.

After an extended hiatus, Lyonne filmed Goyband in New York City with Adam Pascal, Amy Davidson, Cris Judd, Dean Edwards, Tibor Feldman, and Tovah Feldshuh.

Personal life

Lyonne dated actor Edward Furlong, whom she met on the set of Detroit Rock City, from 1998 to 2000. She became friends with actor Michael Rapaport in 1997 and later rented an apartment in a building he owned on East 18th Street. In 2005, Rapaport evicted her and wrote an account of the matter in that May's issue of Jane. He said problems began in 2003 when Lyonne's heavy partying and harassment of tenants triggered complaints. After her eviction, he went to inspect her apartment and found it trashed.

Singer and former neighbor Rufus Wainwright wrote a song about her called "Natasha" included on his 2003 album Want One.

Legal troubles

On August 28, 2001, Lyonne was arrested by Miami Beach police after hitting a road sign with her rented car and trying to flee the scene. An officer who witnessed the incident said Lyonne refused to take a breathalyzer test and told him, "I'm a movie star. Can I talk to my entertainment lawyer?" Actor Adam Goldberg was riding in the car at the time. Lyonne later pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and received six months of probation and 50 hours of community service.⁶

In December 2004, Lyonne was arrested after verbally threatening her neighbor, breaking a mirror in the neighbor's apartment, and threatening to molest the neighbor's dog. She spent a night in jail before being arraigned on charges of criminal mischief, harassment, and trespassing. The details of this incident did not become publicly known until two years later. In April 2005, an arrest warrant was issued for Lyonne for failure to appear in court on the charges. Prosecutors say she showed up, but arrived an hour late and only stayed 30 minutes.⁷ Police were unable to locate Lyonne until reports of her hospitalization in August.

In January 2006, another arrest warrant was issued for her after she missed another hearing. Lyonne's lawyer said an emergency came up, but he didn't specify.⁸

Hospitalization

In August 2005, the New York Post reported that Lyonne was in Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan under a pseudonym, and had been there for over a month after being transferred from Bellevue Hospital. She reportedly suffered from hepatitis C, a heart infection, and a collapsed lung. She was also allegedly undergoing methadone treatment for a heroin addiction and had track marks on her body.⁹ The Post also reported that Lyonne had been homeless and on the streets after her eviction by Rapaport. In an interview with Access Hollywood, Lyonne's father denied she was homeless and said he might take legal action against the hospital for breaking the confidentiality of Lyonne's status.¹⁰

Recovery and return to acting

In December 2006, Lyonne appeared in court to face the 2004 charges. A judge sentenced her to conditional discharge. Since then, she has completed four films.¹¹ In January 2008, she appeared in a Broadway play, "Two Thousand Years".¹²

Filmography

• Heartburn (1986) (uncredited) as Rachel's Niece
• Pee-Wee's Playhouse (1986) (TV series) (1986 – 1987) as Opal
• Dennis the Menace (1993) as Polly
• Everyone Says I Love You (1996) as Djuna 'D.J.' Berlin
• Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) as Vivian Abromowitz
• Krippendorf's Tribe (1998) as Shelly Krippendorf
• American Pie (1999) as Jessica
• Detroit Rock City (1999) as Christine
• Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (1999) as Crystal 'White Girl/Whitie' Van Meuther
• But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) as Megan Bloomfield
• If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000) (TV) as Jeanne
• Scary Movie 2 (2001) as Megan Voorhees
• American Pie 2 (2001) as Jessica
• The Grey Zone (2001) as Rosa
• Kate & Leopold (2001) as Darci
• Comic Book Villains (2002) as Judy Link
• Die, Mommie, Die! (2003) as Edith Sussman
• Party Monster (2003) as Brooke
• Blade: Trinity (2004) as Sommerfield
• Madhouse (2004) as Alice
• Robots (2005) (voice) as Loretta Geargrinder
• My Suicidal Sweetheart (2005) as Grace
• Goyband (2007) as Fani

References

External links

• Natasha Lyonne at the Internet Movie Database
• Mugshot at The Smoking Gun
• Interview at Suicidegirls.com

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