Rene Russo Biography

A tall and sexy actress in the Geena Davis mold, Rene Russo has made a career out of playing brainy-but-nutty love interests in Hollywood action films and comedies. She began as a model, appearing in ads for Revlon cosmetics and in magazines such as Vogue in the 1970s and 1980s. Russo shifted to acting in the late 1980s and made a strong debut as the catcher’s ex-girlfriend in the cult baseball comedy Major League (1989, starring Charlie Sheen). Her heyday was the early 1990s, when she co-starred with a glamour lineup of leading men in quick succession : Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon III, 1992), Clint Eastwood (In the Line of Fire, 1993), John Travolta (Get Shorty, 1995) and Kevin Costner (Tin Cup, 1996). She had the leading role in the strange zoological biopic Buddy (1997), then matched chiseled forty-something physiques with Pierce Brosnan in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair (with Russo in the role created by Faye Dunaway). She rang in the new century by playing nefarious Natasha Fatale in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000). In 2005 she co-starred with Al Pacino in the sports gambling drama Two For the Money, written by her husband, the screenwriter Dan Gilroy.