Christina Ricci

Biography of Christina Ricci

Christina Ricci was born on February 12, 1980, in Santa Monica, California.

She is the youngest of four children of Sarah Murdoch, a model and real estate agent, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and therapist. Her brothers are Rafael (born 1971), Dante (1974) and Pia (1976). Her parents separated in 1993, when she was thirteen years old, since then she has not seen her father again.

The family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where she grew up. She attended Edgemont Elementary School, Glenfield Middle School, Montclair High School, and the Morristown-Beard School. She later entered the Professional Children's School in New York City.

In Montclair, she was discovered by a local theater critic who advised her parents to try out for show business. At the age of eight she began as a child model. Ricci was considered one of the highest-grossing child faces in Hollywood. Her first movie was at the age of nine, Mermaids with Winona Ryder and Cher in 1990.

Characteristic of her are her interpretations of the strange girl, as the sinister creature of The Addams Family and its sequel.

She turned down roles like Rose in Titanic and Claudia in Interview with the Vampire. She was romantically linked to actor Matthew Frauman whom she met on the set of the movie No vacancy (1999).

She was nominated for a Golden Globe for The Opposite of Sex (1999). She later worked on Bless the Child (2000), directed by Chuck Russell, with Kim Basinger, followed by The Man Who Cried.

She premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and later in the United States,Prozac Nation(2001). In All Over the Guy (2001), she worked again with Lisa Kudrow and later filmed Adrenalynn (2001). In early 2002 Pumpkin was released in theaters produced by Francis Ford Coppola.

She was the protagonist of the film Miranda (2002), directed by Marc Munden and appeared in the series Ally McBeal in the 2002 season. The following year Woody Allen directed her in Anything Else, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 27 of the same year.

In 2008, she returned to the big screen playing Trixie, the girlfriend of the protagonist of the Wachowski Brothers movie, Speed Racer. In January 2010 it was announced that the actress would star in the British drama Bel Ami, alongside London actor Robert Pattinson.

In September 2012, she played a leading role in the television series Pan Am, set in the 1960s.

She returned to the Broadway stage in April 2012, performing in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In January 2014, she starred in the lead role of Lizzie Borden Took An Ax. A year later she played the Lizzie Borden: The Fall River Chronicles version.

In 2016, she played the role of a woman who has a life-changing revelation of hers in Mothers and Daughters, opposite Sharon Stone, Susan Sarandon, Mira Sorvino and Courteney Cox. In 2018, she appeared in the psychological thriller Distorted.

In 2019, she began filming Escaping the Madhouse. In 2021 she acts in The Matrix Resurrections appearing at the beginning of the film playing the character Gwyn de Vere.

She appeared on the cover of magazines such as Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, People, participated in renowned events such as the Oscars and the MTV Movie Awards.

She began dating actor Owen Benjamin in 2008 and they became engaged in March 2009, though they broke up in June 2009.

In February 2013, Ricci announced her engagement to cameraman James Heerdegen, whom she met while working on the Pan Am series. They married on October 26, 2013, in Manhattan.

In early August 2014, Us Weekly magazine reported that Ricci had given birth to a son, named Freddie.

On July 2, 2020, Christina filed for divorce from him after almost seven years of marriage, claiming that Heerdegen subjected her to "serious physical and emotional abuse" and that "many of these acts of abuse" took place in front of her son. She was granted an emergency protection order against Heerdegen the day before she filed for divorce. In April 2021, she was awarded full custody of her son.

In August 2021, Ricci and her boyfriend, hairdresser Mark Hampton, announced that she was pregnant with her second child. Two months later, on October 9, Ricci announced her marriage to Hampton. They had their first child together, a girl, in December 2021.

The actress suffers from botanophobia, fear of plants. She has confessed that she is especially scared of indoor plants.