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This willowy blonde has managed thus far to avoid typecasting in wide-eyed, virginal ingenue parts, although she's clearly suited to such roles and has played them skillfully in the past. The daughter of actor Bruce Dern and actress Diane Ladd, she appeared with mom in White Lightning (1973) and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) before making her official screen debut in Adrian Lyne's Foxes (1980). Her turn as a blind camper who befriends freakish Eric Stoltz in Mask (1985) was all innocence and vulnerability, and her leading performance as a confused, coltish girl at the point of womanhood in Smooth Talk (1985) demonstrated her versatility. As if to emphasize the point, Dern appeared as a girl-next-door type in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), and played an extremely uninhibited white-trash character in the same director's Wild at Heart (1990). She portrayed Claire Clairmont in Haunted Summer (1988), and costarred in Fat Man and Little Boy (1989). In 1991 Dern enchanted audiences with her most mature, accomplished performance to date, playing a love-starved, promiscuous but gentle orphan in Rambling Rose (1991). By this time, her mom was supporting her on screen; they became the first mother and daughter to earn simultaneous Oscar nominations. Dern was excellent in the 1992 cable-TV movie Afterburn She then costarred in two high-profile 1993 films: Jurassic Park and A Perfect World
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– Married her longtime boyfriend, singer-songwriter Ben Harper on December 23, 2005.
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– Has declared that being dumped by Billy Bob Thornton was the best thing that could have happened to her.
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– Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and slender, Dern moves with a coltish combination of grace and gangliness that she uses to make herself alternately plain or beautiful, innocent or seductive, as her roles require.
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– During WILD AT HEART (1990) filming, she passed out when David Lynch asked her to smoke four cigarettes at once in one deep inhalation. When she came to, she saw a worried Lynch standing above her asking: Tidbit! Are you alright?
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– RUBY RIDGE: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY (1996) (TV): While filming a scene of running through a door, the rifle she was carrying hit her in the face. She subsequently had to wear a neckbrace.
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– Was nominated Best Actress Oscar for RAMBLING ROSE in 1992.
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– Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV at Golden Globe Awards for THE BABY DANCE (1999)
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– Nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series at Emmy Awards for Ellen (1997)
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– Nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series at Emmy Awards for Fallen Angels (1994)
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– Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama at Golden Globe Awards for RAMBLING ROSE (1992)
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