An American-Canadian actress, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. She grew up in a working-class Jewish neighborhood in Jamaica, New York. Her father was a stock car mechanic and driver who was killed in a race when he was 27 years old. The family settled in Los Angeles, where she received a scholarship to the California Institute of the Arts. Later, she headed to New York to be a folk singer. Some of her works include Double Jeopardy (1999) and JPod (2008). She died on May 7, 2010.