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Rachael Leigh Cook: Baby-Sitters Club
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Born April 1979, October - Born October 4, 1979 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the doe-eyed, fine-boned Rachael Leigh Cook has invited frequent comparisons with the young Audrey Hepburn. The actress began her career at the age of ten as a model, and then broke into acting in 1995 with her role as Mary-Ann Spier in The Baby-Sitters Club.
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On reaching L.A., Cook bypassed the wannabe stage and nailed her first audition (for the part of a budding entrepreneur in Baby-Sitters Club, The (1995)). She returned to theaters three months later in the Jonathan Taylor Thomas vehicle Tom and Huck (1995), then filled her calendar with appearances in independent and made-for-TV movies. She divided her time between Minneapolis and Tinseltown, shuttling from school events to movie shoots with her mother in tow. Cook's starlet status crystallized in 1999, when she starred opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. in the Pygmalion retelling She's All That (1999). She won acclaim ... as Becky Thatcher in Tom and Huck, starring opposite Jonathan Taylor Thomas ("Home Improvement"). However before catching the eye of the nation, she was a model for print ads for about four years.
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Rachael got her first acting role when she was around seven in a non-speaking part in a public service announcement encouraging adults to become foster parents. Around age 10, Rachael started modeling. With her parents' help, Rachael got an agent and soon started landing modeling and commercial jobs. Rachael lives most of the year in her apartment in Los Angelas, but frequently visits with her parents, and younger brother in Minnisota. Her younger brother Ben is around 16, and Rachel and him get along really well. Rachael Leigh Cook burst onto the Hollywood scene in 1995, with the role of Mary Anne Spier in the movie The Baby-Sitters Club, which was based on the successful book series of the same name.
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At the age of 14, Cook began auditioning for acting work. Her modeling agency sent her to read for a short film, 26 Summer Street (1996). She first gained national attention when she was featured in a This is Your Brain on Drugs public-service television advertisement, in which she proceeds to destroy a kitchen with a frying pan as she listed the things that drugs harms (in 1998). Cook began her feature film career some years earlier, debuting in The Baby-Sitters Club (1995) as shy 13-year-old babysitter Mary Anne Spier. The movie was based on Ann M. Martin's book series of the same name.
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The Baby-Sitters Club (1995), Lynn Hamrick and Melanie Mayron's family comedy based on Ann M. Martin's popular children's books, was Cook's first motion picture. In the film, she teamed with Schuyler Fisk and Bre Blair to play a group of 13-year-old girls who begin a baby-sitting club. In the same year, she shared the screen with Jonathan Taylor-Thomas and Brad Renfro in Disney's live-action adaptation of Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," the Peter Hewitt's family adventure film Tom and Huck. The role of Becky Thatcher in the film gave her a Best Young Actress nomination at the YoungStar Awards.
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Once in Los Angeles, Rachael didn't have much trouble landing roles. In 1995, she made her feature film debut in the film adaptation of the popular children's book series, The Baby-Sitters Club. Remaining true to her younger fans, she followed up that performance with a role in the film Tom and Huck, co-starring Home Improvement's Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
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Baby-Sitters Club