« Water-logged | Main | Whoopi Goldberg »
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Buffy has a life that I can really understand. You want to go to the prom but, at the same time, you have work obligations. Do you have a date, or do you go sit in the cemetery all night?
— Sarah Michelle Gellar
PEOPLE expect an awful lot from a female role model these days. It’s not enough for a woman protagonist to be beautiful, intelligent, witty, and in possession of a trendsetting wardrobe — she’s also got to kick some serious ass. And if the popularity of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sarah Michelle Gellar is any indication, the pinnacle of feminist empowerment in the ’90s is kicking some serious supernatural ass. Gellar’s butt-whupping derring-do on the series is that much more realistic because she actually has a brown belt — of the Tae Kwon Do variety. Her bantam-weight Xena for the Courtney Love set has in short order become a ’90s-style archetype of young female self-possession and heroism.
An only child raised on New York’s Upper East Side by a divorced schoolteacher mother, Gellar (pronounced Gell-are) was a natural-born ham. At the tender age of three-and-a-half she was spotted by an agent while dining at a restaurant with her mother. Within a matter of weeks, she had landed her first sizeable role, playing Valerie Harper’s daughter in the 1983 TV movie An Invasion of Privacy. Four wasn’t too young for the precocious tot to experience some of the more unpleasant realities of the biz. Her first commercial, in which she acted as a pint-sized Burger King shill who chides McDonalds for serving such skimpy patties, resulted in a now-famous disparagement lawsuit against her employers dubbed “The Battle of the Burgers.” (The case was eventually settled out of court in 1982.) Luckily, her involvement in the beefy contretemps didn’t break her short stride in the slightest. Subsequent appearances in some 100 commercials filmed over the ensuing years brought in healthy residuals, and a handful of larger roles — in the features Over the Brooklyn Bridge (1984), Funny Farm (1988), and High Stakes (1989); in the TV series Spenser: For Hire (1986); and in a Circle in the Square production of Horton Foote’s The Widow Claire — honed her thespian’s skills. In order to better balance her need to acquire an education with the demands of her budding career, Gellar attended New York’s famous Professional Children’s High School; she somehow also found time to excel as a competitive figure skater.
At 14, Gellar won her first stand-out role, a portrayal of young Jacqueline Bouvier in the 1991 NBC miniseries A Woman Named Jackie. The following year found her in the lead role of the syndicated series Swan’s Crossing, and in a promising part in the Neil Simon Broadway hopeful Jake’s Women (the production never made it to the Great White Way). The year 1993 delivered up Gellar’s first solid, adult role, that of Erica Kane’s long-lost, 22-year-old bad-seed daughter, Kendall Hart, on the daytime drama All My Children. Playing the scheming offspring of soap operadom’s most notorious schemer gave Gellar opportunities to visit all manner of atrocities upon the unsuspecting denizens of Pine Valley: she used her devious wiles to attempt the seduction of her stepfather; she masterminded the breakup of one of her mother’s numerous marriages; she faked a pregnancy; she shot people; she attempted suicide; she fell into a coma. Her first-rate villainy was rewarded in 1994 with an Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress. Gellar departed the soap shortly after snagging the coveted award, and headed for the greener pastures of California to pursue work in television and film.
In 1996, the bombshell soap vet was chosen to play the title role of the action-packed splatter series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a mid-season replacement based on creator Joss Whedon’s script for the moderately popular 1992 feature of the same title that starred Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry. (No stranger to the action genre, Whedon has also written or co-written scripts for Speed, Waterworld, Toy Story, Twister, and, more recently, Alien Resurrection.) The series positions the 20-something Gellar as a not-so-typical teen who is compelled by destiny to act as this century’s one and only “slayer.” In this unenviable capacity, she must use her considerable supernatural endowments to rid the streets of her “one-Starbucks town,” Sunnydale, California, of any undead nasties who emerge at night from the portal to hell located rather inconveniently beneath her high school. As if that weren’t enough, Buffy must simultaneously endure the typical suburbanite teen’s no-less horrifying adolescent traumas — by day, she’s a clique-skewering wit, by night, a scantily clad, high-kicking, stake-wielding, vampire-slaying badass.
In its second season, Buffy reigned as the highest-ranking offering from the WB, and achieved cult-favorite status in a surprisingly short span of time; as for its star, she has commanded uniformly favorable critical attention for her deft physicality and comic flair. The show’s popularity has had the attendant benefit of expanding Gellar’s big-screen options. The petite ingenue, who has been in front of cameras most of her life, appeared in two 1997 thrillers: she played a small-town beauty queen with a damning secret in I Know What You Did Last Summer, co-starring alongside Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Jennifer Love Hewitt; and she played a sorority girl who meets a grisly demise in the sequel to Wes Craven’s phenomenally popular 1996 horror flick Scream. 1999 witnessed her starring turn in the cloying romantic comedy Simply Irresistible, in which she sketches a Manhattan restaurateur who is inspired by her love for a department store executive to create culinary magic; and Cruel Intentions, a trashy teen adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
Occupation: Actress, Model
Date of Birth: April 14, 1977
Place of Birth: New York City, N.Y., USA
Sign: Sun in Aries, Moon in Pisces
Relations: Mother: Rosellen Gellar; father: was divorced from her mother in 1984; companion: Freddie Prinze Jr. (actor)
Education: Attended LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and the Professional Children’s School, both in New York City
Fan Mail: C/O Buffy the Vampire Slayer
c/o The Warner Bros. Television Network
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91522
USA
Sarah Michelle Gellar: Credits
MOVIES
Actor
Cruel Intentions — 1999
Simply Irresistible — 1999
I Know What You Did Last Summer — 1997
Scream 2 — 1997
High Stakes — 1989
Funny Farm — 1988
Over the Brooklyn Bridge — 1984
Other Movie Credits
Small Soldiers — 1998 (Voice only)
TV
Angel — 1999 (Series, appearance)
King of the Hill — 1998 (Series, appearance)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer — 1997 (Series)
Beverly Hills Family Robinson — 1997 (Movie)
All My Children — 1993 - 1995 (Series)
Swans Crossing — 1991 (Series)
A Woman Named Jackie — 1991 (Miniseries)
The Guiding Light — 1986 (Series, appearance )
Spenser: For Hire — 1986 (Series; appearance)
An Invasion of Privacy — 1983 (Movie)
Gellar, Sarah Michelle Web sites
Ablazingly Sarah Michelle Gellar
Brings high quality pictures, sounds and videos. There are also news articles, quote of the week and a Sarah Michelle Gellar message board.
http://www.gellar.freeserve.co.uk/sarahmichellegel…
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Abstract-Reality: Sarah Michelle Gellar
This site takes you through Sarah Michelle Gellar’s biography and filmography. Also provides an image gallery and informative links.
http://www.abstract-reality.com/celebs/females/mic…
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Cruel Intentions
Sony Pictures Entertainment official movie site features interviews with the director plus stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon (requires Quicktime}.
http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/cruelintentions/
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Official site from Sony Pictures Entertainment. Available in both Flash and plain HTML versions.
http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/iknowwhatyoudid/
Last reviewed by DottieHinkle
Sarah Michelle Gellar Kingdom
Contains biography, articles, links, clubs, scans and images, FAQ, and related downloads.
http://maayan.simplenet.com/smg/index2.htm
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Sarah Online
Tons of info on SMG - bio, images, and games.
http://falsereality.com/sarah/main.html
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Sarah-Michelle-Gellar.com
Contains tons of images, articles and multimedia. Also has bio info and an FAQ.
http://www.sarah-michelle-gellar.com/
Last reviewed by jerryman44
SarahMichelle Gellar.org
Contains images, articles, links, biography & filmography info, along with lots of multimedia and downloads.
http://www.sarahmichellegellar.org/
Last reviewed by slayer_net
SMG Fan
A Sarah Michelle Gellar FAQ, biography, collection of pictures, video clips, and transcripts of articles and television appearances.
http://www.smgfan.com/
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
SMGBuffy
A UK SMG/BtVS site where you will find the latest news about Sarah and Buffy TVS along with pictures, links, bios and reviews.
http://www.smgbuffy.u-net.com/
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
a1 Sarah Michelle Gellar
Biography, pictures, sounds and Quicktime video clips of the talented actress.
http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/Goukin/
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Above and Beyond - Sarah Michelle Gellar
Large picture gallery. Interesting facts and gossip. Audio clips, news and interviews.
http://www.bigstars4u.com/sarah-michelle-gellar/
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Ace Celebrities: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Site promotes Gellar through a biography of her career, pictures from various magazines, a filmography, and related articles.
http://www.acecelebrities.com/Celebrities/G/Sarah_…
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
All About Sarah Michelle Gellar
Site contains a very large image gallery along with biography information and an extensive number of autographed pictures.
http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/studio/5534/
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
All Sarah Michelle Gellar
Featuring picture galleries, information, multimedia and links.
http://www.celeb-images.com/smg/
Last reviewed by ms79912
ALL SMG
Everything and anything needed to know about Sarah Michelle Gellar.
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/allsmg/
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Always Sarah Michelle Gellar
An informative site containing biography, images, sounds and video clips.
http://members.xoom.com/smg_rulez/main2~ns4.html
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
An Absolute Goddess
Vast amount of information, including five images galleries, a Hot Gossip page, a biography of the leading lady and much much more.
http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/screen/2252/
Last reviewed by slayer_net
Beauty Incarnate - Sarah Michelle Gellar
A tribute page to Sarah Michelle Gellar, which includes a biography, gallery, and links.
http://www.scv.net/~stark/david/smg.html
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Cinema Desktop Themes: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar desktop themes, screensavers, wallpapers, skins, and other desktop stuff.
http://cinemadesktopthemes.com/st/g/sarah_michelle…
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Topics: Actress, Celebrities
Tags: Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cruel Intentions, Funny Farm, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Scream 2
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
