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Date of Birth

20 February 1978, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Birth Name

Lauren Anne D'Ambruoso

Height

5' 6" (1.68 m)

Mini Biography

Lauren Ambrose (born February 20, 1978) is an American film, television, and stage actress. She is best known for playing Claire Fisher on the HBO funeral drama series Six Feet Under.

Personal life

Ambrose was born Lauren Anne D'Ambruoso in New Haven, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Anne (née Wachtel), an interior designer, and Frank D'Ambruoso, a caterer. She is of Italian descent on her father's side and German, English, and Irish on her mother's. Ambrose attended Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut, Wilbur Cross High School, High School in the Community, and the ACES Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven. She is also a trained opera singer who studied voice and opera at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Ambrose also sings New Orleans-flavored ragtime with the seven-piece combo Lauren Ambrose and the Leisure Class. Ambrose has been married to professional photographer Sam Handel of Needham, MA since September 2001. They have a son, Orson (b. January 16, 2007) and currently live in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Career

Ambrose began her career in New York theater, mainly in Off-Broadway productions. Her early career also included television appearances, most notably playing supporting guest roles on Law & Order, and a feature guest role on the show in the 1998 episode "Damaged" as Valerie Maxwell, a mentally-challenged young woman raped by a group of popular high school students. Her first film role was In & Out (1997), which was followed by a more prominent role in the high school comedy Can't Hardly Wait (1998). She was the ingenue lead, Florence "Chicklet" Forrest, in the cult favorite Psycho Beach Party (2000). Ambrose began her role on Six Feet Under in early 2001. She was nominated for the Best Actress in a Supporting Role Emmy Award twice, following the 2002 and 2003 seasons of the critically acclaimed drama.

In 2006, Ambrose made her Broadway debut in the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Awake and Sing!. In 2007, she appeared as Juliet in the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park performance of Romeo and Juliet at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, to great critical acclaim. She appeared as Ophelia in the 2008 performance of Hamlet for Shakespeare in the Park. Ambrose recently returned to Broadway in Exit the King (by Eugene Ionesco) at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on Broadway, opposite Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon. Ambrose provided the voice of monster KW in Where the Wild Things Are, which was released in 2009. In January 2011 it was announced that she had been cast in seven of the ten episodes of Torchwood: Miracle Day. Between July and September 2011 she appears as Jilly Kitzinger "a sweet-talking PR genius with a heart of stone who’s just cornered the most important client of her career … and maybe of all time."

Ambrose will return to Broadway in the 2012 revival of Funny Girl, starring as Fanny Brice, a role made famous by Barbra Streisand in 1964.

Source

The Mini Biography is from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Ambrose. IMDb is not affiliated with, and neither endorses, nor is endorsed by Wikipedia or any of the authors who contributed to this article. The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional or other terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details. This webpage may use the Freebase schema, licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/.

Spouse

Sam Handel

(September 2001 - present) 1 child

Trade Mark

Bright red hair

Trivia

Attended Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut, and Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Connecticut, but transferred and graduated from the High School in the Community, a magnet school also in New Haven. She also attended the Educational Center for the Arts, New Haven's performing arts school, and spent summers studying voice at Tanglewood in Massachusetts.

Classically trained opera singer

Lives in Manhattan (New York City) with her husband, Sam.

Her father, Frank, is a caterer, and her mother, Annie, is an interior designer.

Has a younger brother, John.

Lauren is taking piano lessons.

Husband Sam, a photographer, is originally from Boston.

Gave birth to her first child, a baby boy named Orson, on January 17, 2007.

When she was a kid, she sang at weddings and funerals.

Her grandmother told her to become a funeral director, because she thought acting was very unpredictable, and funeral director would be a practical profession.

Her father's family is Italian-American.

She replaced Michelle Williams in Where the Wild Things Are (2009), after it was decided that Williams didn't quite match the filmmakers' vision of how the character should sound.

Was a big fan of Parker Posey before she worked with her on "The Return of Jezebel James" (2008). After working on the show, they befriended.

Did her own singing in Psycho Beach Party (2000).

Was chosen as one of People Magazine's annual 100 Most Beautiful People in the World, Beauty at Every Age section, for age 29, in May 2007.

Moved to New York because she wanted more theater in her life. She quickly got a part in the successful play "Exit the King" opposite Susan Sarandon and Geoffrey Rush.

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