Marisa's mother Patricia, an English teacher, and father Gary, a trial lawyer, were both devoted to and greatly consumed by their professions, and frequently left their children in the care of their grandmother, Rita. By virtue of this arrangement, Marisa formed a strong bond with her grandmother, the woman who eventually had a hand in launching her acting career.

digging deep

As a child, Marisa's sights were set on becoming an archaeologist, but these ambitions were quickly dispelled by her first trip to the theater, attending a Broadway production of A Chorus Line. Twelve years old at the time, Marisa was swept with the notion of becoming an actor, an aspiration that proved more enduring than her former one.

She became involved in drama projects at her school, and her interest hadn't waned by the time she enrolled at Edward R. Murrow High School. Marisa's commitment to acting was a full-time one: outside of school she sought out auditions through the classifieds of local papers, and spent her summers performing in plays in Golden Bridge Colony in upstate New York. Marisa's passion was for the stage, and by the time her high-school graduation rolled around in 1982, she had been involved in a number of off-Broadway productions.

At 18, Marisa left New York to attend Boston University. She completed her freshman year with the academic lifestyle having failed to capture her interest, and remained determined to embark on an acting career. Although her parents advocated that she return to Boston to complete her degree, Marisa's grandmother Rita was especially supportive of her endeavor, and set her granddaughter up with an agent. Soon thereafter Marisa landed her first television role, as a teen seductress on the daytime soap As the World Turns. This first job lasted a year and a half, marking the end of Marisa's academic life and the beginning of her professional one.

Marisa's work on As the World Turns, in conjunction with appearances on another soap, One Life to Live, paved the way for her film debut, a bit part in 1984's The Flamingo Kid. She continued with stage work and appeared in a bit part in the 1985 Troma production The Toxic Avenger before returning to the small screen in 1987, as Lisa Bonet's college roommate in the television series, A Different World.

mona lisa vito... priceless

The Cosby Show spin-off boasted a strong following, upping Marisa's visibility and lending a hand in winning her a leading role in her third film, 1992's My Cousin Vinny. The comedy was a hit, and Marisa's performance as Joe Pesci's wisecracking fiancée was sufficiently well-received to earn her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Marisa's Oscar victory proved a dramatic turning point in her career, but not in the traditional sense. Few in the entertainment industry had anticipated that she would win the award, given her relative inexperience, and she did not reap the rewards that most Academy Award winners enjoy. Vicious gossip circulated suggesting that presenter Jack Palance had misread the envelope and mistakenly given the Oscar to Marisa, rather than its rightful owner Vanessa Redgrave for her performance in Howard's End. Although these rumors were not grounded in fact, they seemed to have a bearing on Marisa's career, sending it into a slump that many predicted would end in her disappearance from the industry altogether.

Marisa did not disappear from the industry, nor did she stop working. Nevertheless, a successful follow-up to My Cousin Vinny eluded her, and her participation in such doomed projects as 1992's Chaplin, 1994's Untamed Heart and The Paper, and 1995's The Perez Family and Four Rooms failed to revive her career (although she was awarded the MTV Movie Award for Best On-screen Kiss for her smooch session with Christian Slater in Untamed Heart).

cursed or worse?

Marisa earned a Screen Actors Guild Nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in 1996's Unhook the Stars, and her work in 1997's Welcome to Sarajevo was also critically applauded, but the films themselves went largely unnoticed. Despite the four-year passage since her victory, Marisa continued to be plagued by public myths of an "Oscar Curse," one that was also associated with actresses Geena Davis and Mira Sorvino.

Marisa's misfortune seemed to follow her from screen to stage, as she took on the lead role in Quentin Tarantino's 1998 lambasted Broadway production, Wait Until Dark. In spite of this additional failure, Marisa persisted, and the upswing in her career came the same year, from an unexpected source. It was not a commercial hit, but rather the 1998 independent movie Slums of Beverly Hills that launched Marisa back into the public eye, as her performance in the film garnered critical acclaim.

what men want

Success bred further success, and roles in 2000's The Watcher and the enormously successful romantic comedy What Women Want re-established Marisa as a fixture in the entertainment business. Alongside appearances in Happy Accidents and Someone Like You, Marisa had a starring role in the dark drama, In the Bedroom in 2001. Her portrayal of a single mother was met with a second Academy Award nomination, proving that the first was no fluke and endearing her to a fickle Hollywood community.

After a brief romance with Twin Peaks cast member Dana Ashbrook, Marisa has apparently been seeing New York playwright Frank Pugliese on and off since the mid-'90s. She is slated to appear in a number of upcoming movies, including Anger Management with Adam Sandler, and alongside Heather Graham in The Guru.