MADELEINE MARIE STOWE MORA, COSTA RICAN ROOTS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Madeleine Stowe, the American actress, who was born on a day like today in 1958.

Madeleine Marie Stowe Mora is an American actress. She appeared mostly on television before her role in the 1987 crime-comedy film Stakeout. She went on to star in the films Revenge (1990), Unlawful Entry (1992), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Blink (1993), 12 Monkeys (1995), The General's Daughter (1999), and We Were Soldiers (2002). For her role in the 1993 independent film Short Cuts, she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress.

From 2011 to 2015, Stowe starred as Victoria Grayson, the main antagonist of the ABC drama series Revenge. For this role, she was nominated for the 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress-Television Series Drama.

Stowe, the first of three children, was born at the Queen of Angels Hospital, in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Eagle Rock, a section of Los Angeles. Her father, Robert Stowe, was a civil engineer from Oregon, while her mother, Mireya (née Mora Steinvorth), came from a prominent family in Costa Rica.

Not being especially interested in her college classes, she volunteered to do performances at the Solaris, a Beverly Hills theater, where a movie agent saw her in a play and got her several offers of appearances in TV and films. 

In 1978, she made her debut in an episode in the police drama series Baretta, followed by a string of TV work with guest appearances on The Amazing Spider-Man, Barnaby Jones and Little House on the Prairie.

In 1978, she played a leading role as Mary in the television movie, The Nativity (1978). She starred in two NBC miniseries: Beulah Land (1980) and The Gangster Chronicles (1981), which starred Brian Benben, her future husband. She also starred in several television films, such as Amazons (1984) and Blood & Orchids (1986).

In 1987, Stowe appeared in her first breakthrough role in the feature film Stakeout with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez. The film debuted at No.1 at the box office.

Stowe postponed her acting career in 1996 to concentrate on her family life. She settled for several years in a Texas ranch, with her daughter May and husband Brian Benben.

In 1998, she came back with The Proposition and Playing by Heart, and then The General's Daughter, opposite John Travolta in 1999.

In 2011, Stowe announced her return and began playing Victoria Grayson, the glamorous and powerful matriarch of the Grayson family, on ABC's television drama series Revenge.

In 2019, she returned to acting starring as actress Margot Weston in the Netflix musical drama series, Soundtrack.

In 2008, Stowe traveled to Haiti and helped found Artists for Peace and Justice. She is on the board of directors of the foundation.

More information: Roger Ebert

I love the life of an actor because you spend
brief amounts of time with other people
and then you just leave.
I need to be alone a lot, and I need the outdoors.

Madeleine Stowe