Since making her uncredited debut as a dancer in
Beatlemania (1981), Gina Gershon has
established herself as a character actress and one of the leading icons
of American camp. For it was fourteen years after her movie debut that
Gina made movie history as the predatory bisexual who was the leading
light of a Las Vegas leg-line in director
Paul Verhoeven's kitsch classic
Showgirls (1995). Exploding out of a
plaster-of-Paris volcano clad in nothing but body makeup and a
G-string, Gina Gershon obtained cinema immortality. After
Showgirls (1995), she solidified her
reputation, playing a lesbian sexpot in the Wachowskis' neo-noir
Bound - Gefesselt (1996).
Gina Gershon was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, the
last in a brood of three kids. Her mother, Mickey (Koppel), worked as
an interior decorator, and her father, Stanley Gershon, was a salesman
and worked in the import/export business. Her paternal grandparents
were from Russian Jewish families, and her maternal grandparents were
born in Holland and Belgium, both of them to Jewish
families from Poland. Gina was raised in the San Fernando Valley, and
got the acting bug early, appearing at the age of seven in a school
production of
Bye Bye Birdie (1963). Because of
her acting ambitions, her parents moved to Beverly Hills so Gina could
attend Beverly Hills High, where she indulged her acting jones by
appearing in a student production of
Music Man (1962). Her first
love, she says, is singing.
After graduating from high school in 1980, she attended Emerson College
in Boston, but took a part in the musical "Runaways". She transferred
to New York University, where her official biography says she studied
philosophy and psychology, but she graduated from the Tisch School of
the Arts, taking a bachelor of fine arts degree in drama in 1983. In
New York City, while perfecting her craft, she co-founded the theater
company Naked Angels with Helen Slater.
Her big-screen breakthrough came with a part in the 1986 "Brat Pack"
teenage hit Pretty in Pink (1986).
She also had parts in the Tom Cruise vehicle
Cocktail (1988) and
Arnold Schwarzenegger's
Red Heat (1988). Of this period, she
says, "One of my first gigs, a movie called
Cocktail (1988), I found myself at 8 in
the morning, in bed, practically naked, having to make out with
Tom Cruise; hmmmm... movie business - so far,
so good".
Citing Frank Sinatra's song "My Way" as an
inspiration, she says that following
Cocktail (1988), "I was fortunate enough
to play many diversified roles in film, television and stage. Not
always to the liking of my managers and agents, but I always did what I
wanted...." She played
Nancy Barbato Sinatra, Frank's first wife,
in the TV miniseries
Frank Sinatra - Der Weg an die Spitze (1992).
Gina Gershon became a celebrity in
Showgirls (1995). The following year,
Gershon solidified her claim on second-tier stardom playing the
calculating lesbian "Corky" in the crime movie
Bound (1995). She never did capitalize on
her mid-1990s breakthrough, but Gershon is established as a character
actress and is never out of work, unlike most of her female peers who
started out in the industry at the same time. Though no classic beauty,
the talented thespian remains gainfully employed while many actresses
of her vintage are out of work as she is possessed of a unique look and
smoldering sex appeal that comes across on camera.
Gershon is versatile, too, as at home on stage as she is in front of
the camera. After appearing in off-Broadway and regional theater
productions, she made her Broadway debut as a replacement in
Sam Mendes' revival of
Cabaret (1972) in January 2001. For six
months, she played the key role of "Sally Bowles", returning that
October to reprise the role for another month. In 2008, she once again
appeared on Broadway in the revival of the farce "Boeing Boeing" on
Broadway, which won the Tony award for Best Revival.
Gina Gershon also is a children's book writer. In 2008, Putmam Juvenile
published her "Camp Creepy Time", a tale of a boy who discovers aliens
at his summer camp, which she co-wrote with her brother,
Dann Gershon. "Camp Creepy Time" recently
was optioned by DreamWorks, which plans to turn it into a movie. In
2008, she also released "In Search Of Cleo", a CD featuring nine songs which she wrote or co-wrote.
