Tea Leoni Biography

Tea Leoni (born Elizabeth Tea Pantaleoni on February 25, 1966) is an American actress.

Biography

Tea Leoni was born in New York City. Her father was half Italian, half Polish, and her mother was born in the American South. She married actor David Duchovny on May 6, 1997. Their first child, daughter Madelaine West Duchovny, was born on April 24, 1999, and their second, son Kyd Miller Duchovny, was born on May 15, 2002.

A graduate of Brearley School, The Putney School and Sarah Lawrence College, Tea Leoni went on to star in a number of TV series and movies, starting as "Lisa DiNapoli" on Santa Barbara in 1989. She starred in 1995's smash box-office hit Bad Boys, along with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Her most commercially successful movie was Deep Impact, in which her character, "Jenny Lerner," breaks the story of a comet that is going to hit Earth. She also starred in Woody Allen's modest movie Hollywood Ending, which also starred Allen himself and Mark Rydell. In 2004, Leoni starred in Spanglish with Adam Sandler, Cloris Leachman, and Paz Vega (a Spanish actress with whom she spoke Italian off-set).

In 1993, Tea Leoni landed the starring role in Fox's Flying Blind, a short-lived sitcom.

In 1995, Tea Leoni landed the lead role in the television sitcom The Naked Truth, playing Nora Wilde, a tabloid news journalist. The show was a minor hit and lasted until 1998.

An asteroid, 8299 Tealeoni, has been named after her. While on The Tonight Show starring Jay Leno, Leoni admitted that she had incorrectly filled out her 2000 general election absentee ballot. Tea had intended to vote for Al Gore, but instead accidentally voted for someone named "Howard" (most likely Howard Phillips, the very paleoconservative candidate of the Constitution Party).