Jordan Ladd

Ladd portrayed Bette Davis' stand-in in the low-budget show business drama Stand-Ins (1997) before starring with her mother in the television film Every Mother's Worst Fear (1998). A year later, she landed her first high-profile role as a popular teenager who tortures Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed (1999). Barrymore, who also produced the film, offered Ladd the first crack at a role in her company's big-screen adaptation of Charlie's Angels (2000). Not wanting to be stuck completely in the shadow of her mother, she politely declined. Instead, after being named one of the world's 100 Sexiest Women by Stuff magazine, Ladd starred as a strung-out actress vying for an Academy Award in E!'s first original movie, Best Actress (2000). Unfortunately, she followed this clever over-the-top comic performance with The Deadly Look of Love, a trashy television film, and The Specials (2000), a silly feature about the private lives of superheroes. Yet, over the next few years, Ladd established herself as an independent darling, appearing in films like Boy's Life 3 (2000) (opposite a few other young actors with well-known surnames, Jason Gould, Alexis Arquette, and Sara Gilbert) and in the David Lynch short film Darkened Room (2002). ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide