Lisa Marie

Statuesquely enigmatic model/actress Lisa Marie is best known for her work with eccentric auteur Tim Burton. Though she studied dance during her New Jersey childhood, Lisa Marie became a model when she moved to New York as a teen. Featured in photographer Bruce Weber's well-known ad campaign for designer Calvin Klein's Obsession perfume, she also made her film debut in Weber's stylish Chet Baker documentary Let's Get Lost (1989). She was subsequently cast in Woody Allen's whimsical Alice (1990). After she met Burton in the early '90s, the director cast Lisa Marie as B-movie persona Vampira in his critically acclaimed biopic of Z-movie king Ed Wood (1994). Her small part as an alluring, homicidal Martian in Burton's science fiction send-up Mars Attacks! (1996), however, captured even more attention. Following roles in the HBO movie Breast Men (1997) and several independent films, including Frogs for Snakes (1998), Tail Lights Fade (1999), and Chasing the Dragon (2000), Lisa Marie appeared in another visually striking Burton movie world as the doomed Lady Crane in Sleepy Hollow (1999). Continuing her run of Burton films, Lisa Marie appeared as a lusty simian trophy wife in Burton's "reimagining" of Planet of the Apes (2001). Lisa Marie's long-standing personal relationship with Burton, however, ended abruptly and publicly when Burton took up with Apes star Helena Bonham Carter.

~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide