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Born in New Jersey to Italian-American parents, deep-voiced actress Laura San Giacomo studied at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. After performing in regional theater, off-Broadway, and TV guest-star roles, she made her auspicious debut in Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape. As the down-to-earth yet adulterous Cynthia, her presence brought a sense of inhibition to the cast of otherwise sexually repressed characters. This was followed by a series of other good roles: the prostitute Kit in Pretty Woman, the hardworking waitress in Vital Signs, Holly Hunter's sister in Once Around, and the American expatriate Crazy Cora in Quigley Down Under. In addition to providing her husky voice to the star-studded animated series Gargoyles, she moved over to TV movies, most notably the Stephen King adaptation The Stand. On the big screen, she starred in Nina Takes a Lover, Stuart Saves His Family, and The Apocalypse (co-starring her then-husband Cameron Dye). After having her son Mason, she started playing the memorable role of magazine journalist Maya Gallo on Just Shoot Me, which ran from 1997-2003 on NBC. She worked steadily in the years following Just Shoot Me, but she was away from screens for four years after 2001, returning in the 2005 drama Havoc. Two years later she starred opposite Holly Hunter in the supernatural series Saving Grace.