Twink Caplan

Twink Caplan

Active - 1980 - 2012  |   Born - Dec 25, 1947 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States  |   Genres - Comedy, Drama, Romance

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Biography by AllMovie

A native of Pittsburgh, veteran supporting actress Twink Caplan was on-stage at the city's Playhouse beginning at age five. She studied ballet for many years and danced briefly with a Russian ballet troupe before radically switching gears to work as a go-go dancer. Caplan then worked with a major New York magazine, on the radio as an executive producer, and as a talk show host, becoming the first female radio personality in Pennsylvania. Caplan came to Southern California while working with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. Electing to stay, she soon found work as an actress. Caplan made her feature film debut in Underground Aces (1980). Her most notable subsequent roles include that of the outgoing redhead Rona in the first two Look Who's Talking features and her turn as lovelorn teacher Miss Geist in Amy Heckerling's Clueless (1995), which Caplan also co-produced. Caplan and Heckerling have enjoyed a long professional partnership. Their collaboration began when Caplan, then a development executive at Columbia, co-produced Heckerling's television pilot Nineteen. In addition to Clueless, Caplan also produced Heckerling's film Loser (2000), and has taken supporting roles in several of her other films.

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Factsheet

  • Began performing in Pittsburgh at age 5; was later both a ballerina and a TV-show go-go dancer.
  • Made friends with folk singer Kinky Friedman after interviewing him on a Pittsburgh radio show she hosted in the 1970s. He wrote a song ("Twinkle") for her.
  • Made movie acting debut (as Twinkie Caplan) in American Raspberry (also known as Prime Time), a low-budget 1977 movie spoof of 1970s TV in which Friedman also appeared. 
  • Best known as Miss Geist in the 1995 Amy Heckerling comedy Clueless and its 1996-99 sitcom adaptation; was also an associate producer of the movie and one of the series' co-executive producers.
  • Other Heckerling collaborations include the 1986 sitcom Fast Times (Caplan appeared in the pilot); the 1989 comedy Look Who's Talking and its 1990 sequel, Look Who's Talking Too (costarred); and the 2000 comedy Loser (costarred and produced).