Juliette Lewis was born on
June 21, 1973 in Los Angeles as daughter of
actor Geoffrey Lewis - appeared in many of
Clint Eastwood's films- and graphic designer
Glenis Batley. She has 11 siblings and
half-siblings. Even at the age of seven
Juliette recognized she wanted to become an
actress. She began her professional acting
career at age of 12. As a precocious teen
she became legally emancipated at the age of
14 in order to gain exemption from
child-labor laws, which mandate that child
actors work no more than five hours a day on
school days and that they be supervised by a
guardian. Lewis dropped out of high school
at 15 and subsequently passed the
equivalency exam with the help of a tutor.
While adequate in elementary school, she
began failing her courses in the seventh
grade because she did not like the 'whole
format'. "If you're forced to study, you're
not going to learn." Though she's always
lived responsibly she admitted to some wild
years, she was even arrested of being
underage - 15 - in an underground disco. The
mugshot she got from the policeman now hangs
posterized in her house. After leaving
school, Lewis moved to Hollywood where she
lived with friend Karen Black for a few
months before moving into an apartment with
one of her friends. She had several roles,
in 1987 she appeared in 'Home Fires' as Mary
and as Kate Ferrel the 13-year old daughter
of widower/architect who marries his Central
American housekeeper, an illegal alien, in
the poorly received ABC sitcom 'I Married
Dora'. She played in 'Christmas Vacation',
however the first chance to demonstrate her
talent was 'Too Young to Die?', based on the
true story of Amanda Sue Bradley, a sexually
abused runaway teen who was the first minor
to receive death penalty. That role not only
helped her land her co-star Brad Pitt (they
broke up in 1993, after a nearly four year
relationship), it also led to the role as
the narcoleptic sister in the quirky film
"Crooked Hearts". But more importantly, it
grabbed the attention of director Martin
Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro, so she
got the role of Danielle Bowden in 'Cape
Fear'. For her fascinating play at the age
of 17 she was nominated for both the Academy
Award and Golden Globe. Among the films
followed 'Cape Fear' were Woddy Allen's
'Husbands and Wives', 'Romeo Is Bleeding', 'Kalifornia'
and 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape'
co-starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo
DiCaprio. After playing Gracie in Nora
Ephron's comedy 'Mixed Nuts' she made
another hit success as Mallory Knox in
'Natural Born Killers' in 1994. in 1996 she
played Kate Fuller in 'From Dusk Till Dawn'
co-starring Quentin Tarantino and George
Clooney. Juliette's hobbies are collecting
antique clothing and walking around with a
tape recorder documenting everyday moments
in an effort to capture reality for future
use in her film career. She is a member of
the Church of Scientology and listed as one
of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1991" in
John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 43. Fox N.
Barnley.
