Rene Russo

Rene Marie Russo (born February 17, 1954) is an American actress and model. She began her career as a fashion model in the 1970s, appearing on magazine covers such as Vogue and Cosmopolitan. She made her film debut in the 1989 comedy Major League, and rose to international prominence in a number of thrillers and action films throughout the 1990s, including Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), In the Line of Fire (1993), Outbreak (1995), Get Shorty (1995), Ransom (1996), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), and The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). After headlining the family comedy Yours, Mine & Ours (2005), Russo took a five-year break from acting. She returned to the screen as Frigga, the mother of the titular hero, in the superhero film Thor (2011), a role she reprised in Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). In 2014, Russo starred in the acclaimed crime thriller Nightcrawler, for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She has also appeared in The Intern (2015), Just Getting Started (2017), and Velvet Buzzsaw (2019). Early life and education Russo was born in 1954 in Burbank, California, to Shirley (née Balocca), a factory worker and barmaid, and Nino Russo, a sculptor and car mechanic who left the family when Russo was two. Her father was of Italian descent, while her mother had Italian, German, and English ancestry. Russo grew up with her mother and her sister, Toni (who was married to lyricist Bernie Taupin between 1979 and 1991), and attended Burroughs High School, where her classmates included director Ron Howard. She was plagued with scoliosis and had to wear a full-torso brace. Her height also earned her the nickname "Jolly Green Giant" from her classmates. In a 2019 interview with Financial Times, she indeed described herself as a "geek", and admitted that the bullying she endured during high school made her drop out in the tenth grade. Growing up, Russo did not have any "ambitions", remarking that she "was too busy just trying to survive, along with my sister and my mom —money was tight, my mom worked two jobs". She began taking a variety of part-time jobs to help her family, including working in an eyeglass factory and as a movie theater cashier.