Lindsay Lohan Biography

Lindsay Dee Lohan (born July 2, 1986) is an American actress and pop music singer. Lohan started in show business as a child fashion model for magazine ads and television commercials. At age ten, she began her acting career in a soap opera; at eleven, she made her motion picture debut by playing both twins in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap. Lohan's breakout role as a leading actress came six years later with 2004's Mean Girls, which shone the media spotlight on her professional and personal lives—including her nightlife and her parents' marital and legal struggles.

As an adult, Lohan began to take on more varied roles and projects, including Robert Altman's final film, A Prairie Home Companion. While filming Herbie: Fully Loaded in 2004, Lohan launched her career in music, recording and releasing her first studio album, Speak; her second album, A Little More Personal (Raw), was released in 2005.

Childhood

Lindsay Lohan was born in The Bronx and grew up in Merrick and Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island in New York. She is the eldest child of Michael Lohan, a onetime actor, and the former Donata "Dina" Sullivan, who has claimed that she worked as a Rockette, though Radio City Music Hall records have failed to verify this claim. She has three younger siblings: brother Michael had a role as "Lost Boy at Camp" in The Parent Trap (1998), sister Aliana is an aspiring model and actress, and brother Dakota (Cody) has modeled fashions. Lohan is of Irish and Italian heritage and was raised as a Catholic. She originally pronounced her name ˈloʊhæn but later settled on ˈloʊən; in 2005, Lohan explained to a TEENick audience that she had decided to use Morgan as her middle name because it sounded more professional.

Lindsay's family was financially comfortable; her father Michael Lohan had inherited his family's pasta business, which he later sold to trade in futures (briefly becoming President of New York Futures Traders). More recently, he worked as an investment banker, securing funding for independent films. Lohan's mother Dina, was a Wall Street analyst before becoming her daughter's manager. Despite the family's wealth, Lohan—when she wasn't tutored on film sets—attended public schools on Long Island until just before her high school graduation, finishing her studies at home.

It was revealed in 2004 that Michael Lohan had spent much of his daughter's preteen years in prison for securities fraud. In 2005, he was sent back to prison for "aggravated unlicensed driving" and attempted assault. Later that year, Lohan's parents settled their divorce case; her mother's attorney said, "Dina and the children are delighted that this chapter in their lives is finally over," while her father (through his lawyer) said, " look forward to the opportunity to rebuild my relationship with my children."

Early work

Lohan began her career with Ford Models at age three and, at a time when blue-eyed blondes were in highest demand, the freckle-faced, auburn-haired child found little work as a fashion model. She persisted and eventually appeared in more than 100 print ads for Toys "R" Us. She also modeled for Calvin Klein Kids (usually with siblings Michael and Ali) and Abercrombie Kids. Through young adulthood, Lohan was featured in such diverse magazines as Vogue, Elle, Bliss (UK), Хай Клуб (High Club, Bulgaria), and Blenda (Japan).

Lohan's first auditions for television work did not go well; by the time she tried out for a Duncan Hines commercial, she told her mother that she would give up if she did not get the job. She was hired, and Lohan went on to appear in over 60 commercials, including a Jell-O pudding spot with Bill Cosby. Her ad work led to roles in soap operas, and she was already considered a show-business veteran in 1996 when she landed the role of Alexandra "Alli" Fowler on Another World, "where she delivered more dialogue than any other ten-year-old in daytime serials" of the time.

Lohan gave up Another World for the big screen when director Nancy Meyers cast her as estranged twin sisters who try to reunite their long-divorced parents (Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson) in The Parent Trap (1998). Hired in 1997 at age 10, Lohan was 11 when filming began in England and California (in Los Angeles and the Napa Valley). "I left school for eight months," she said. "When I came back, my friends [asked], 'Where'd you go?' I said, 'My family and I went on a long vacation.' Then the movie came out, and they were, like, 'Um, Lindsay? That's you in Parent Trap,' and I said, 'Oh, yeah. I also did this movie while we were gone.'" Trap was well-received for a family comedy, bringing in US$92 million worldwide. Film critic Janet Maslin found Lohan's dual performances so forceful "that she seems to have been taking shy violet lessons from Sharon Stone." Critic Kenneth Turan called Lohan "the soul of this film as much as Hayley Mills was of the original, and … she is more adept than her predecessor at creating two distinct personalities".

Signed by Disney to a three-film contract, Lohan was offered the role of Penny in Inspector Gadget but, after seven months' work on The Parent Trap, she turned it down. Later, she starred in two original television movies, Life-Size (2000) (with Tyra Banks) and Get a Clue (2002). She also played Bette Midler's daughter in the first episode of the short-lived series, Bette (2000), but Lohan—then 14—quit when the production moved from New York to Los Angeles. In 2001, she hosted the ABC-TV commercial series commemorating Walt Disney's 100th birthday during a rebroadcast of The Parent Trap.

Following a brief hiatus, Lohan attended her first-ever film audition and won the lead teen role in another Disney remake; Freaky Friday (2003) starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Lohan as a mother and daughter trapped in the other's body. Critic Roger Ebert praised Lohan's "Jodie Foster sort of seriousness and intent focus beneath her teenage persona," while Carrie Rickey—who panned the film—called her performance "unpredictable and inspired." Through 2005, Friday was Lohan's biggest commercial film success, earning US$160 million worldwide.

Movie career

Lohan was given the lead in two films, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (her first feature that was not a remake) and Paramount's Mean Girls, both released in 2004. Drama Queen was a modest success at the box office, grossing about US$30 million, but was a failure with critics. "Though still a promising star," Robert K. Elder wrote, "Lohan will have to do a little penance before she's forgiven for Confessions." That "penance" came with Mean Girls, her first PG-13 (and first non-Disney) film; her breakout lead performance pushed the critical and commercial hit to gross US$128 million worldwide, "cementing her status as the new teen movie queen," wrote Brandon Gray. "Lohan dazzles us once more," said Steve Rhodes. "The smartly written script is a perfect match for her intelligent brand of comedy."

Mean Girls was scripted by Tina Fey and featured several alumni of Saturday Night Live; Lohan was asked to host the show three times, in 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Lohan returned to Disney for Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), the fifth film in the long-dormant Herbie series. Her rising popularity allowed her to choose from a wider variety of projects and, at age 19, Lohan felt Herbie would help her make the transition into more grown-up roles. "In most of my other films, I was in high school," she said. "Here, my character is just out of college. It's nice to be able to do something that I think will be acceptable to the fan base I've accumulated from my Disney movies, but subconsciously they'll see me getting older and maturing." Fully Loaded earned $144,146,816 worldwide.

Her next film in wide release, Just My Luck, opened in May 2006 to poor reviews and earned only $38 million worldwide. The following month, A Prairie Home Companion, in limited release ended its run with $25,648,948 globally. "Lohan rises to the occasion," wrote Peter Travers, "delivering a rock-the-house version of 'Frankie and Johnny'." Lohan completed filming the independent Emilio Estevez film, Bobby, opposite Elijah Wood, in December 2005; the film débuted at the Venice Film Festival on September 5, 2006, and was released in theaters on November 23, 2006, though it earned a weak $19,560,892 worldwide with mixed reviews. Chapter 27 with Jared Leto began filming in New York on January 9, 2006, and had wrapped by March. No release date has been announced.

Lohan starred in Georgia Rule opposite Felicity Huffman and Jane Fonda which was released May 11, 2007.The film was met with harsh reviews and a opening weekend total of just $6.7 million and has a tepid total of $22,224,343 worldwide. Lohan will next be seen in I Know Who Killed Me when the movie opens July 27, 2007, in which she, as told to David Letterman, will play a stripper and that it's a "really dark, scary film.

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