Skip to main content

Hayden Leslie Panettiere - Image Gallery

Debra Messing


Messing was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the daughter of Sandra (née Simons), who has worked as a professional singer, banker, travel and real estate agent, and Brian Messing, a sales executive for a jewelry manufacturer. Messing is Jewish, a descendant of immigrants from Russia and Poland. When Messing was three, she moved with her parents and her older brother, Brett, to East Greenwich, a small town outside Providence, Rhode Island.

During her high school years, she acted (and sang) in a number of high school productions, including the starring role in the musical "Annie" and "Fiddler On the Roof". Messing took lessons in dance, singing, and acting. In 1986, she was Rhode Island's Junior Miss and competed in Mobile, Alabama in the America's Junior Miss scholarship program. While her parents encouraged her dream of becoming an actress, they also urged her to complete a liberal arts education before deciding on acting as a career. Following their advice, she attended Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. During her junior year, she studied theater at the prestigious London-based British European Studio Group program, an experience that fueled her desire to act.

In 1990, after graduating summa cum laude from Brandeis with a bachelor's degree in theater arts, Messing gained admission to the elite Graduate Acting Program (which accepts only about 15 new students annually) at New York University, where she earned a master's degree in fine arts after three years.

Messing met her husband, Daniel Zelman (an actor and screenwriter), on their first day as graduate students at NYU in 1990. The two were married on September 3, 2000, and live in New York City. On April 7, 2004, Messing gave birth to their son, Roman Walker Zelman.

Quick Info
Born Debra Lynn Messing
August 15, 1968, Brooklyn, New York
Years active 1994 - present
Spouse(s) Daniel Zelman (2000-)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Frances Conroy

Born on November 13, 1953, in Monroe, Georgia to a business executive father and a mother who also worked in business. Frances is of Irish and Latvian heritage. Conroy studied drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Juilliard School in New York City. Frances Conroy married Jan Munroe in 1992.

Keegan Connor Tracy

Keegan Connor Tracy was born on 3 December 1971, is a Canadian actress known for her roles as the ill-fated Kat Jennings in Final Destination 2 (2003) and Dawn/Molly in Blackwoods (2002). She obtained a degree in Social Psychology from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Her more recent work has included Beggars and Choosers, Stargate SG-1, Jake 2.0, Psych, Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, and the Geoffrey Sax film White Noise. She was born Tracy Armstrong in Sarnia in Windsor, Ontario.

Viggo Mortensen

Mortensen was born in New York City, New York. His American mother, Grace Gamble (née Atkinson), and Danish father, Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr. (a farm manager who worked in business), met in Norway. His maternal grandfather was from Canada. His family moved to Venezuela, Argentina and Denmark, settling in Argentina, where he learned Spanish. His father managed chicken farms and ranches in Argentina. They remained there until Mortensen was age eleven, when his parents divorced and his mother moved back to New York. He moved with his father to Copenhagen, Denmark. Mortensen and his father eventually went back to the United States where Mortensen graduated from Watertown High School, Watertown, New York. After high school, he returned to Denmark, and became a truckdriver in Esbjerg, Denmark, before, again, returning to the United States to pursue an acting career. He attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a bachelor's degree in Spanish. He chose that subject bec