Biography and Career

Early life

Ricci was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth child of Ralph Ricci and Sarah Murdoch. Regarding her ancestry, Ricci has noted that "the Italian blood has been bred out of [her]. There's an Italian four or five generations back who married an Irish woman and they all had sons. So they married more Irish women, there were more sons, and more Irish women. Now I'm basically Scots-Irish".^[1] Her father, before becoming a lawyer, was a psychiatrist who specialized in shrieking therapy. While growing up, Christina could hear the therapies through the vents in her room, and would act them out in front of her mother. The family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where she grew up attending Edgemont Elementary School, Glenfield Middle School and Montclair High School. She left the high school for a private school in New York City after one year [1]. Her siblings are Rafael (born 1971), Dante (born 1974), and Pia (born 1976). When her father and her mother, a former fashion model who now works in the real estate business, finally separated in 1993, she stayed with her mother who took custody of the children.

Early roles

A critic for the Bergen Record discovered Ricci at age eight in a school play (The Twelve Days of Christmas) at Glenfield Middle School, Montclair, New Jersey. The critic's son was originally cast in the role, but Ricci got him to hit her and told on him; he lost the role to her as part of his punishment. After this, she became involved in the movie business. She did several commercials starting at the age of six, until she finally got her big screen debut in Richard Benjamin's Mermaids (1990) alongside Cher, Bob Hoskins, and Winona Ryder, as Cher's younger daughter. Although much attention went to Winona Ryder, who played Ricci's older sister, the young actress made enough of an impression to land more work: the following year, she starred as the morbidly precocious Wednesday Addams in the hit film adaptation of The Addams Family. The role would help to establish Ricci as an actress known for playing dark, unconventional characters; she went on to play Wednesday again in the film's 1993 sequel Addams Family Values.

After this, Christina's popularity increased dramatically, and she became in high demand by the mid-1990s. Her next project was the box office hit Casper, which was critically panned. After Casper, she starred in Now and Then a coming-of-age film about four 12-year-old girls and their friendship from the 1970s to the 1990s. Now and Then was another box office success, and Christina was becoming a top box office draw for every film she starred in. She also starred in a handful of other films with teenage roles such as Golddiggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain and That Darn Cat.

Later films

In 1997, Ricci began to appear in more "mature" adult roles, beginning with her role as the troubled, sexually curious Wendy Hood in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. The actress handled the part with uncanny maturity, leading many observers to conclude that she was truly beginning to come into her own. This assessment was solidified with Ricci's subsequent roles in films like Buffalo '66 (in which she played Vincent Gallo's unwitting abductee-turned-girlfriend), John Waters' Pecker, and Don Roos' The Opposite of Sex, the last of which cast her as Dede, a delightfully loathsome girl who wreaks tabloid-style havoc on everyone she encounters. For her performance as Dede, Ricci was nominated for a Golden Globe and attained the unofficial title of the Sundance Film Festival's 1998 "It" Girl.

Later films included Sleepy Hollow, Monster, and Prozac Nation. Ricci had to turn down the role of Ronna in Go (1999) because of scheduling conflicts. She was turned down four times for the role of Lolita Haze in Lolita (1997), which eventually went to Dominique Swain. Ricci was originally slated to play the lead in Ghost World (2001), but by the time it was filmed she was too old for the part and had moved on to other projects. Thora Birch took over the role. Ricci has also begun producing films. In February of 2006, Ricci made a guest appearance as a paramedic in the ABC drama Grey's Anatomy, for which she was nominated for an Emmy award.

On December 4, 1999, she appeared on Saturday Night Live as the guest host, in which she parodied Britney Spears and the Olsen twins. During one of her skits, she accidentally punched actress Ana Gasteyer in the face. The skit was a parody of the Sally Jessy Raphael show, in which she played a 13-year-old runaway who sleeps with dogs, and required her to fake-punch Sally, but accidentally hit her for real. Although she initially reacted by putting her hands over her mouth in surprise, she maintained her professionalism and quickly fell back into character.

In 2006, Ricci stated that she feels that she is "too short" to ever be an A-list actress, citing her belief that she tends "to look really small on camera".^[2] She has also noted that she believes that she does not have much control over her career, specifying that she still has to audition for film parts.^[3] Her next film, the drama Black Snake Moan, co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and Justin Timberlake and is scheduled to open on February 16, 2007.

Personal Life

Ricci owns her own production company, Blaspheme Films, responsible for Prozac Nation and Pumpkin.

She dated fellow actor Adam Goldberg until the end of 2005. The couple reportedly sold the house they had together when they broke up. Since August of 2006 the couple has been seen back together & Christina even wears a gold necklace with a anchor that has the initials AG. Christina said in a interview that it was "fate" that she & Adam were back together.

Ricci is on the national board of VOX-Voices for Planned Parenthood, which works to promote the mission of Planned Parenthood to young adults. She will also be appearing in national ads for Emergency Contraception. She supported John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004.^[4]

Tattoos

Christina has several tattoos including a bouquet of sweet peas on her lower back, a pair of praying hands on her hip (this used to be a bat but she has since had it covered), a fairy on her inner wrist, a sparrow on her lower right breast, a lion (from The Chronicles Of Narnia) on her shoulder blade, the name "Jack" on her right thigh, & the words "Move Or Bleed" on the left side of her ribcage.

Films

Trivia

Minnesota-based hip hop artist Slug of Atmosphere and West coast based MURS, of the Living Legends crew made an album dedicated to Ricci, titled Felt: A Tribute to Christina Ricci. The first part of "Goddess of Doom", a song by Finnish doom metal-band Reverend Bizarre, is also a tribute to her.

References

Footnotes

Web sites

• Christina Ricci at the Internet Movie Database
• Christina Ricci at the Notable Names Database
• Christina Ricci Interview by Al Weisel, US Magazine, June 1998
• Christina Ricci Queen of Rebels (fansite)