Vinessa Elizabeth Shaw was born on July 19, 1976, in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Larry Shaw and actress Susan Damante. Her family\'s original surname was "Schwartz", and her ancestry includes Russian-Jewish (from her paternal grandfather), Italian (from her maternal grandfather), German, Irish, English, Mexican, and Swedish. Her name, Vinessa, spelled with an "i" rather than the common "a", was a variation of her grandfather\'s name, Vincent. Shaw made her first formal performance in a UCLA acting camp short at age 10, and subsequently toured with children\'s folk singer Peter Alsop at age 11. She also signed on with the Elite Models agency in 1989 at the age of 13 before beginning her acting career, and did a few modeling jobs and commercial work throughout her earlier career.\n', '

She attended Barnard College in New York City at age eighteen, but dropped out to continue pursuing acting. Shaw was attending the college when she was approached by Stanley Kubrick for her role in Eyes Wide Shut.\n', '

Shaw had made her film debut in a little-known-of 1981 slasher film called Home Sweet Home, which dealt with a serial killer at Thanksgiving time. She then landed parts in a handful of television roles. She played a considerably large role in Disney\'s 1993 Halloween family film Hocus Pocus alongside Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Omri Katz, and a young Thora Birch. Shaw completed roles in various independent films for the remainder of the 1990s.\n', '

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