Manheim was born in Caldwell, New Jersey and grew up in Peoria, Illinois. She is the daughter of Sylvia, a teacher, and Jerome Manheim, a mathematics professor. Her family is Jewish. She attended Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, California and became interested in acting after working at a Renaissance fair during high school. Manheim graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz with a BFA degree in 1984 and New York University\'s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program with an MFA degree in 1987. Her brother, Karl Manheim, is a law professor at Loyola Law School.\n', '

Manheim worked for a while as a sign language interpreter at hospitals. Her knowledge of sign language was used on The Practice, in an episode of Law & Order, and in her role as a child behavioral psychologist in the movie Mercury Rising.[citation needed] In 1983, she made a brief appearance as a girl in an elevator in Sudden Impact alongside Clint Eastwood, in the post-courtroom scene at the beginning.\n', '

Manheim\'s breakthrough was her one-woman show, "Wake Up, I\'m Fat," which played off-Broadway at Classic Stage Company in 1994. She adapted the show into a book of the same name, which was published by Broadway Books in 1999.\n', '

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