Illeana Douglas

Illeana Hesselberg (born July 25, 1965), most commonly known as Illeana Douglas, is an American actress, director, screenwriter, and producer. Douglas has had a long-ranging diverse career as a character actor with a specialty in comedy. Notable works include work in a 2001 episode of Six Feet Under – for which she received a Primetime Emmy nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series and won the Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series award from OFTA, the Online Film & Television Association – and her work in the TV series Action opposite Jay Mohr – for which she won a Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. She can currently be seen on Turner Classic Movies where she hosts specials focused on unheralded women directors from film history.\n', ' Douglas was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, the daughter of Joan Douglas (née Georgescu), a schoolteacher, and Gregory Douglas, a painter. Douglas\' father was the son of Hollywood actor Melvyn Douglas and his wife, the artist Rosalind Hightower. Douglas had two older brothers, the late Stefan Gregor Hesselberg, a technician in the histology laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who also trained racehorses in Verona, Italy, and Erik Hesselberg, a journalist.\n', ' Douglas grew up in Connecticut, in the Old Saybrook area, but said that really she grew up all over, in Massachusetts where her father lived, Connecticut where her mother lived, and New York, where her extended family lived. During her childhood she spent time going back and forth between relatives during the summer. Douglas said that her parents were heavily influenced by the 1970s hippie culture—her father especially by the movie Easy Rider. They had a loose parenting style and did not pressure her to go to college. Comedy albums were really big in her family. The family would put on dramatic interpretations and performances.\n', '