Vinessa Shaw

VINESSA SHAW was born into a family of actors that includes her mother, Susan Damante, and sister, Natalie Shaw. Having discovered the joy of acting as a child, she made her debut in a small role in the film Home Sweet Home at the age of 5 and earned her first starring role in 1992 as a teenage soccer player in the comedy Ladybugs.

The Los Angeles native attended Pitzer College in Claremont, California, while juggling acting assignments. In 1993, she won a starring role in Walt Disney Pictures’ Hocus Pocus, opposite Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy, playing a teenage girl beset with a trio of ancient witches.

Major roles followed in such films as Coyote Summer, director Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, L.A. Without a Map, Wayward Son, The Weight of Water, Corky Romano, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Melinda and Melinda, The Hills Have Eyes, 3:10 to Yuma (opposite Russell Crowe and Christian Bale), Badland and Two Lovers.

Among her television work are roles on the series House M.D., New York Undercover and Fallen Angels, as well as the television movies Long Road Home, The’70s, Bereft, Fathers and Sons and World of Trouble.

A practicing Buddhist, she is actively involved in that faith’s outreach to teenagers. She is also a busy spokeswoman and model for such products as Noxzema and Levi’s jeans.

(c) 2012 Universal Pictures