Olivia d'Abo

Olivia d'Abo

Active - 1984 - 2022  |   Born - Jan 22, 1969 in Paddington, London, England  |   Genres - Drama, Comedy, Action

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Biography by AllMovie

The daughter of British musician Michael d'Abo (of Manfred Mann), London-born actress Olivia D'Abo is most widely known as Kevin Arnold's hippie sister, Karen, on The Wonder Years.The beloved nostalgic show ran from 1988 to 1992 on ABC and continues to live on in syndication. However, D'Abo had already made her film debut back in 1984 with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer as a damsel in distress. Other than the monumentally bad Bolero, her other films have mostly been forgettable until 1994 when she cemented her position in Generation X by starring in Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming. She played Jane, the girl who chose to study abroad rather than date Josh Hamilton's character. Around the same time, she wore very little clothes around the aging Kirk Douglas in Jonathan Lynn's Greedy and she played opposite aging Armin Mueller-Stahl in Bob Balaban's The Last Good Time. In the late '90s, she found a place for herself as a voice actor on animated TV shows. Starting with Mortal Kombat: The Animated Series, her voice credits have grown to include Justice League, Batman Beyond, and the Titanic video game. In 2001, she provided the voice of Jane in Disney's The Legend of Tarzan and its subsequent feature-length film. In 2003, she did the voice of Rox in The Animatrix: Matriculated.

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Factsheet

  • Acted in television commercials as a teenager, including a spot for McDonald's in the mid-'70s.
  • Has done extensive voice-over work on animated television shows, animated films and video games.
  • Made her Broadway debut in the 2005 revival of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, costarring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
  • Is an accomplished singer-songwriter, guitar player and pianist.
  • Has composed music for and performed on several soundtracks and albums; released her own debut album, Not TV, in 2008.
  • Sang a duet version of "Livin' on a Prayer" on the 2003 Bon Jovi compilation album This Left Feels Right, and cowrote and recorded the single "Broken" with Seal in June of 2013.
  • Founded her own production company, Olive Tree Productions.