Samantha Mathis - Biography

The pert, attractive, young Mathis is a third-generation performer (granddaughter of Austrian actress Gusti Huber, daughter of actress Bibi Besch). The New York and L.A.-raised teen got her first role--as an Amish girl--in the short-lived TV series "Aaron's Way" (NBC, 1988). She continued to work in TV sporadically, her contributions consisting of the crime series "Knightwatch" (ABC, 1988-89) and supporting roles in the TV-movies "American Nuclear" (as James Farentino's daughter, CBS, 1989), "Cold Sassy Tree" (TNT, 1989), and three 1990 movies, "Extreme Close-Up" (NBC), "82 Hours 'Til Dawn" (CBS) and "To My Daughter" (NBC).

But the big screen was Mathis' goal, and in 1989 she made her film debut in the low-budget thriller "Forbidden Sun". The following year, she garnered positive notices for her portrayal of an angst-ridden teen poet in "Pump Up the Volume" (1990), co-starring Christian Slater. Coasting on good notices, she won the part of the awkward teenage daughter of Julie Kavner in Nora Ephron's "This is My Life" (1992). After contributing a voice-over in the animated "FernGully: The Last Rainforest" (1992), Mathis graduated to adult roles (though in a juvenile film) as the love interest of John Leguizamo in the film version of the hit video game "Super Mario Bros." (1993). A small role in the thriller "The Music of Chance" (1993) followed, but Mathis finally starred--with the ill-fated River Phoenix--in the drama about aspiring country and western singers, "The Thing Called Love" (1993). That last was important in Mathis' life: she began dating Phoenix and was with him the night he died, and female co-star Sandra Bullock became her best friend.

The parts came fast and furious by the mid-1990s: she was cute, spoiled, adult Amy in "Little Women" (1994) and had three good roles in 1995: a waitress-turned-nanny in the romantic British comedy "Jack & Sarah" (released in the US in 1996), portraying a youthful version of Lois Smith's Sophia in Jocelyn Moorhouse's "How to Make an American Quilt", and Chief Executive Michael Douglas' assistant in "The American President". She was reunited with former co-star (and former boyfriend) Christian Slater for John Woo's action thriller "Broken Arrow" (1996), as a park ranger trying to rein in psycho John Travolta.