She gained recognition for her role as Julie Richman in the 1983 movie Valley Girl.
She enrolled in the Barbizon School of Modeling in Houston when she was thirteen years old.
She received her Screen Actors Guild card four weeks after arriving to Los Angeles because she appeared in a commercial for McDonalds of England.
Her father was a Marine Corps pilot, her mother was an executive assistant and her brother worked in the music industry.
Her 1983 role in Valley Girl co-starred an unknown Nicolas Cage.
