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Fairuza Balk
Fairuza Balk, January 2006
Born	Fairuza Alejandra Feldthouse May 21, 1974 (1974-05-21) (age 35) Point Reyes, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1983–present

Fairuza Alejandra Balk (born May 21, 1974) is an American film actress. She made her theatrical film debut as Dorothy Gale in Disney's Return to Oz. She has also appeared in The Craft, American History X and The Waterboy.

Contents 1 Her early life 2 Her known career 3 Her known personal life 4 Filmography 5 References 6 External links

Her early life

Balk was born as Fairuza Alejandra Feldthouse in Point Reyes, California.¹ Her mother, Cathryn Balk, is of Dutch descent and worked as a belly dancer and teacher of Middle Eastern and Flamenco dancing.² Her father, Solomon Feldthouse, one of the founding members of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Kaleidoscope and also a traveling folk musician,³ was born in Pingree, Idaho and moved to Turkey at age 10, where he lived for six years and learned Greek, Turkish and Persian music.⁴ Fairuza's personal name translates from the Persian as "turquoise;" she was so named for the turquoise-blue color of her eyes.

Fairuza's father took her several times to the Oregon Country Fair, where she would do Flamenco dancing on stage and her father played his Middle Eastern music. Soon after her parents divorced, Balk and her mother became world travelers. She was raised for the first part of her life in San Francisco on a commune-type ranch. They then moved to Vancouver when she was nine. When she was 11, they moved to London, where she attended various prestigious ballet and acting schools.

Her known career

It was during the time Fairuza was spending in London that she was selected by Walt Disney Productions to star as Dorothy Gale in Return to Oz, the loose sequel to MGM's 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz. It was not her debut role; that role had been in a television movie titled The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, produced in 1983. However, it was the one that brought her attention as an actress. The role led to other minor roles, including that of Mildred Hubble in the comedy The Worst Witch, and in 1988 she moved to Paris to do more work as an actress. By 1989 she was back in Vancouver, where she attended high school. However, she soon decided to take correspondence courses instead and went back to Hollywood, where she gained increasing notice as an actress. In 1992 she was awarded an Independent Spirit Award as best actress for her performance in the Allison Anders film Gas Food Lodging.

In 1996, she appeared in a lead role in The Craft, in which her character formed a teenage coven with characters portrayed by Neve Campbell, Rachel True and Robin Tunney.

Balk has continued to find roles. She co-starred in The Island of Dr Moreau in 1996, gave a performance as a neo-Nazi opposite Edward Norton in American History X in 1998, and was featured in The Waterboy, alongside Adam Sandler, in 1998. Since 2000, she has appeared in over half a dozen movies. She has also done voice work for animated films and video games, including Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Her known personal life

Balk lives in Hollywood, California, and has an apartment in New York City. Outside her career, her interests include writing poetry and fiction, playing guitar and violin, singing, and dancing. Over the years, she has been romantically involved with a number of well-known men, including British actor David Thewlis, who appeared with her in The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1996 and in American Perfekt in 1997, as well as C. M. Talkington, the director and writer of the cult classic, Love and a .45.^{citation needed}

Fairuza was a well-known neopagan even before she shot 1996's The Craft, and served as an uncredited technical advisor to the film. She provided some witchcraft information on set and helped design many of the sets to match real pagan rituals. From 1995 to 2001, she owned Panpipes Magickal Marketplace, billed as the nation's largest occult store, in Hollywood, California.⁵

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1983	The Best Christmas Pageant Ever	Beth Bradley	TV
1985	Return to Oz	Dorothy Gale
1986	Deceptions	Penny Roberts	TV
	The Worst Witch	Mildred Hubble	TV
	Discovery	Molly
1987	Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story	Barbara Hutton at the age of 12 years	TV
1988	The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick	Celia Brzjinski
1989	Valmont	Cecile
1991	Deadly Intentions... Again?	Stacey	TV
1992	Gas Food Lodging	Shade	Winner, Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress
	Shame	Lizzie Curtis	TV
	The Danger of Love	Lisa	TV (concerning the story of Carolyn Warmus)
1993	Murder in the Heartland	Caril Ann Fugate	TV
1994	Imaginary Crimes	Sonya Weiler
	Tollbooth	Doris
1995	Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead	Lucinda
	Shadow of a Doubt	Angel Harwell	TV
1996	The Craft	Nancy Downs	Also an uncredited technical advisor
	The Island of Dr. Moreau	Aissa
1997	The Maker	Bella Sotto
	American Perfekt	Alice Thomas
1998	There's no Fish Food in Heaven	Mona
	American History X	Stacey
	The Waterboy	Vicky Valencourt
2000	Red Letters	Gretchen Van Buren
	Almost Famous	Sapphire
2002	Personal Velocity: Three Portraits	Paula
	Deuces Wild	Annie
	Grand Theft Auto: Vice City	Mercedes Cortez	video game; voice
2003	Justice League	Penny	1 episode
2005	What Is It?	Snail	voice
	Don't Come Knocking	Amber
	A Year and a Day	Lola
2006	Wild Tigers I Have Known	Logan's Mom
	Masters of Horror	Stacia	TV episode "Pick Me Up"
2008	Grindstone Road	Hannah Sloan
	Humboldt County	Bogart
2009	Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans	Heidi

Awards and achievements
Independent Spirit Award
Preceded by Judy Davis for Impromptu	Best Leading Actress 1993 for Gas Food Lodging	Succeeded by Ashley Judd for Ruby in Paradise

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fairuza Balk

• Fairuza Balk at the Internet Movie Database
• Fairuza Balk at Allmovie

Persondata
NAME	Balk, Fairuza
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Feldthouse, Fairuza Alejandra
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Actress
DATE OF BIRTH	May 21, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH	Point Reyes, California, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH