Laura San Giacomo

San Giacomo, an Italian American, was born in West Orange, New Jersey, the daughter of MaryJo and John San Giacomo, a paper mill owner. She grew up in Denville, New Jersey. San Giacomo discovered acting while attending Morris Knolls High School. In 1984, she received a fine arts degree, specializing in acting, from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh.\n', ' After graduating, she moved to New York. San Giacomo then went on to appear in several theater productions, including the Garry Marshall-Lowell Ganz production of Wrong Turn at Lungfish in Los Angeles, the Princeton/McCarter Theatre production of Three Sisters, and off-Broadway in Beirut. She also starred in Italian American Reconciliation, regional productions of Shakespeare\'s The Tempest, As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet, as well as Crimes of the Heart. In a review of the Walnut Street Theatre 1986 presentation of As You Like It, San Giacomo received a special mention: "although doll-like Laura San Giacomo had only a minor role as a wilful shepherdess, she sank her fangs into it and received the only show-interrupting applause of the evening."\n', ' San Giacomo\'s first television appearances were four episodes on three television series during 1987. Two notable appearances were in Crime Story in 1988 for the episode "Protected Witness" (Season 2 / Episode 13) as Theresa Farantino, and in Miami Vice in 1989 for the episode, "Leap of Faith" (Season 5, Episode 19) as Tania Lewis. The Miami Vice episode also featured a guest appearance by her future husband, actor Cameron Dye, one year before their marriage. Prior to that, she was featured on the daytime soap opera All My Children as Louisa Sanchez, the Latina common-law wife of Mitch Beck (Brian Fitzpatrick) whose presence threatened to thwart his relationship with Hillary Martin (Carmen Thomas).\n', '