Christina Ricci Biography

Christina Ricci	Born: 1980-02-12 Birthplace: Santa Monica, CA Race: White Religion: Christian Field: Actor Famous for: The Addams Family
Field: Actor

Christina Ricci (born February 12, 1980) is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominated American actress. She first gained fame for her role as Wednesday Addams in the Addams Family films.

Ricci was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth child of Ralph Ricci and Sarah Murdoch. Regarding her ancestry, Ricci has noted that "The Italian blood has been bred out of [her]. There's an Italian four or five generations back who married an Irish woman and they all had sons. So they married more Irish women, there were more sons, and more Irish women. Now I'm basically Scots-Irish".[1] Her father, before becoming a lawyer, was a psychiatrist who specialized in shrieking therapy. While growing up, Christina could hear the therapies through the vents in her room, and would act them out in front her mother. The family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where she grew up attending Edgemont Elementary School, Mount Hebron Middle School and Montclair High School where she graduated from in 1998. Her siblings are Dante, Pia and Rafael.

Her parents divorced shortly after she filmed her role in 1993's Addams Family Values.

Ricci made her cinematic debut at the age of nine alongside Cher, Bob Hoskins, and Winona Ryder in Mermaids. She auditioned for the roles that were eventually played by Kirsten Dunst in the films Little Women and Interview with the Vampire. She also appeared in the video for Moby's song "Natural Blues," and in ads for The Gap.

Ricci is perhaps best known for her roles in The Addams Family films, Sleepy Hollow, Monster and independent films including Buffalo 66, Prozac Nation, and The Opposite of Sex. Ricci had to turn down the role of Ronna in Go (1999) because of scheduling conflicts. She was turned down four times for the role of Lolita Haze in Lolita (1997), which eventually went to Dominique Swain. Ricci was originally slated to play the lead in Ghost World (2001), but by the time it was filmed she was too old for the part and had moved on to other projects. Thora Birch took over the role. Ricci has also begun producing films. In February of 2006, Ricci made a guest appearance as a paramedic in the ABC drama Grey's Anatomy.

Minnesota-based hip hop artist Slug of Atmosphere and West coast based MURS, of the Living Legends crew made an album dedicated to Ricci, titled Felt: A Tribute to Christina Ricci. The first part of Goddess of Doom, a song by Finnish doom metal-band Reverend Bizarre, is also a tribute to her.

On December 4, 1999, she appeared on Saturday Night Live as the guest host, in which she parodied Britney Spears and the Olsen twins. During one of her skits, she accidentally punched actress Ana Gasteyer in the face. The skit was a parody of the "Sally Jessy Raphael" show, in which she played a 13-year-old runaway who sleeps with dogs, and required her to fake-punch Sally, but accidentally hit her for real. While she initially reacted by putting her hands over her mouth in surprise, she maintained her professionalism and quickly fell back into character.

In 2006, Ricci stated that she feels that she is "too short" to ever be an A-list actress, citing her belief that she tends "to look really small on camera".[2] She has also noted that she believes that she does not have much control over her career, specifying that she still has to audition for films parts. Her next film, the drama Black Snake Moan, co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and Justin Timberlake and is scheduled to open on February 16, 2007.