Lisa Jane Persky

Lisa Jane Persky (born May 5, 1955) is an American actress, journalist, author, artist, and photographer. She played supporting roles in the films The Great Santini (1979) Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and When Harry Met Sally... (1989), and worked in the late 1970s as a writer and photojournalist for New York Rocker magazine. Early life and education After her parents' divorce, her father, Mordecai (Mort) Persky, married novelist Judith Rossner (Looking for Mr. Goodbar), and her mother, Jane Holley Persky, married classical violinist Vladimir Weisman. Persky grew up in New York City's Greenwich Village at 87 Christopher Street, a building known for notable tenants such as H.M. Koutoukas and Yoko Ono. She attended P.S. 41 for elementary school then the High School of Art and Design, where she studied graphic design. Acting Immediately after she graduated from high school, Persky's neighbor Koutoukas, a playwright, told her that he had written a play for her. He cast her, with the salary of $25 per week, as "Cordelia Wells, The World's Most Perfect Teenager" in Grandmother Is in the Strawberry Patch. The play was produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and was the first of several collaborations between Persky and Koutoukas. In 1976, she performed as Mary-Eleanor in Tom Eyen's Women Behind Bars, directed by Ron Link and starring Divine. She has since appeared in many plays, including on Broadway in Steaming, and has received critical acclaim for her stage performances in Los Angeles. She received the Drama-Logue and LA Weekly Theater awards (for Best Actress) for Mayo Simon's These Men, in which she starred at the Los Angeles Actors Theatre Company and for Hearts on Fire at the Odyssey. She also received a Drama Critics Circle award nomination (for Outstanding Performance) for These Men.