Who is Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni? The entertainment and acting world knows Tea Leoni as an American actress. She has starred in a wide range of films including Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Deep Impact, Fun with Dick and Jane, Spanglish, Bad Boys and Ghost Town.Early life
Leoni was born February 25, 1966 in New York City, the daughter of Emily Ann (née Patterson), a dietician and nutritionist, and Anthony Pantaleoni, a corporate lawyer of the firm Fulbright & Jaworski.[1][2] Leoni’s mother is a native of Texas, and her father is of Italian, English and Polish descent.[3][4][5] Leoni attended two private schools, Brearley School and The Putney School. She attended but did not complete studies at Sarah Lawrence College.Leoni’s paternal grandmother, Helenka Adamowska Pantaleoni (1900–87), was a film and stage actress who was a daughter of musicians Józef Adamowski and Antonina Szumowska-Adamowska, who, with Józef's brother Tymoteusz Adamowski, were the Adamowski Trio.[5][6] Leoni's paternal great-grandfather was the brother of Italian economist and politician Maffeo Pantaleoni.[5]
Career
In 1988, Leoni was cast as one of the stars of Angels 88, an updated version of the 1970s show Charlie's Angels. In May 1988, Life magazine ran a story on the casting of this new series. After production delays, the show never aired. The following year, Leoni starred as "Lisa DiNapoli" in the TV daytime drama Santa Barbara.
Leoni went on to appear in the women's baseball film A League of Their Own in 1992. Later in the year, she starred with Corey Parker in the single-season Fox sitcom Flying Blind, playing a beautiful, eccentric, downtown-Manhattan libertine who falls in love with an ordinary Long Island college graduate. In February 1995, she appeared in the sitcom Frasier as the fiance of Sam Malone, portrayed by guest star Ted Danson, in a crossover from Cheers.Leoni also landed the lead role in the sitcom The Naked Truth, playing Nora Wilde, a tabloid news journalist. The show ran through 1998. In the 2000 episode of the The X-Files "Hollywood A.D." (season 7, episode 19), Leoni played an actress portraying Dana Scully in a movie under her own name.
Leoni's film work includes a lead role in Deep Impact, a big-budget disaster film about a comet menacing Earth; and Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Bad Boys and You Kill Me. She starred as a film studio executive in Hollywood Ending for director Woody Allen, portraying his ex-wife, and in Spanglish as the emotionally unstable wife of Adam Sandler.
Leoni ranked #79 on the FHM "100 Sexiest Women of 2000" list.[7]
Personal life
Leoni stated in the October 27, 2006 issue of Life magazine that she became a Goodwill ambassador for UNICEF partially because her paternal grandmother was the president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF for 25 years. |
| Neil Joseph Tardio, Jr |
Leoni married her first husband, Neil Joseph Tardio, Jr., a television commercial producer, on June 8, 1991, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Hope, New Jersey.[8]Leoni married her second husband, actor David Duchovny, on May 6, 1997, after a nine-week courtship. Their first child, daughter Madelaine West Duchovny, was born on April 24, 1999, in Southern California. Their second child, a son, Kyd Miller Duchovny, was born on June 15, 2002 in Los Angeles.
On October 15, 2008, Leoni and Duchovny confirmed that they had been separated "for several months." The media attributed the separation to Duchovny's much publicized sexual addiction.[9] The couple have since publicly reconciled and are seen frequently together as a family.[10]Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Santa Barbara | Lisa DiNapoli | # 1169–1174 |
| 1991 | Switch | Connie the Dream Girl | |
| 1992 | A League of Their Own | Racine 1st Base | |
| 1994 | Wyatt Earp | Sally | |
| The Counterfeit Contessa | Gina Leonarda Nardino | TV | |
| 1995 | Bad Boys | Julie Mott | |
| 1996 | Flirting with Disaster | Tina Kalb | |
| 1998 | There's No Fish Food in Heaven | Landeene | |
| 1998 | Deep Impact | Jenny Lerner | |
| 2000 | The Family Man | Kate Reynolds | |
| 2001 | Jurassic Park III | Amanda Kirby | |
| 2002 | People I Know | Jilli Hopper | |
| Hollywood Ending | Ellie | ||
| 2004 | Spanglish | Deborah Clasky | |
| 2005 | Fun with Dick and Jane | Jane Harper | |
| House of D | Mrs. Warshaw | ||
| 2007 | You Kill Me | Laurel Pearson | |
| 2008 | Ghost Town | Gwen | |
| 2009 | Manure | Rosemary Rose | |
| 2011 | Tower Heist | Gertie Fiansen |
