Rachel Talalay

Rachel Talalay (born July 16, 1958) is an American filmmaker and producer best known for directing films such as Ghost in the Machine (1993) and Tank Girl (1995). She is also a professor at the University of British Columbia. Early life and education Talalay was born in Chicago. Her father Paul Talalay was a pharmacologist, born in Berlin to a Russian Jewish family, and her mother Pamela is an English biochemist. She has two sisters and a brother. She was raised mostly in Baltimore, with two years of her childhood in Britain. Talalay attended Yale University, where she majored in mathematics, graduating in 1980. She also ran the Yale Film Society. Career Talalay worked in a number of different capacities in filmmaking before making her directorial debut with the film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991). Talalay also worked on the first four A Nightmare on Elm Street films. Her work with the earlier Nightmare films utilized her computer skills and finding ways to create better special effects while still keeping costs low. Despite her familiarity with the Freddy movies, when she directed Freddy's Dead, she was given internal memos telling her not to be "too girly" or "too sensitive." Talalay also directed Tank Girl in 1995, and was looking into re-optioning the rights to make a new film in 2008. As a film producer, Talalay worked with director John Waters on the films Hairspray (1988) and Cry-Baby (1990). She was also a production assistant on Waters' 1981 film Polyester.