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Alexis Arquette

Alexis Arquette built a screen career around characters who rarely seemed designed to blend into the background. Born in Los Angeles on July 28, 1969, she came from a family of performers: her parents, Lewis Arquette and Brenda Olivia “Mardi” Nowak, both worked in the arts, while her siblings Rosanna, Richmond, Patricia and David Arquette became actors. Arquette’s first screen appearance came at age 12 in The Tubes’ music video for “She’s a Beauty.” She made her film debut with an uncredited role in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, then played Georgette, a trans sex worker, in the 1989 adaptation of Last Exit to Brooklyn. Much of her film career unfolded in low-budget and independent productions, where unusual, abrasive or vulnerable roles gave her room to make an impression. Those parts ranged widely. She appeared opposite Tim Roth as a crack addict in Jumpin’ at the Boneyard, played a young man pursuing revenge in the New Zealand-shot horror fantasy Jack Be Nimble, and took supporting roles in Pulp Fiction, Threesome and Bride of Chucky. She also appeared in Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror, Sometimes They Come Back... Again and I Think I Do. For many viewers, Arquette is most immediately associated with The Wedding Singer. As George Stitzer, an ardent Boy George fan who repeatedly sings “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,” she turned a relatively small role into one of the comedy’s sharpest recurring bits. She later played Georgina, a Boy George impersonator, in Blended, a direct callback to that performance. Arquette’s television work included appearances on Xena: Warrior Princess, Friends and Son of the Beach, as well as reality television turns on The Surreal Life and Top Design. Beyond acting, she worked as a choreographer and musician and was an LGBTQ rights activist. Across more than 40 films, she established a career shaped less by conventional leading roles than by fearless supporting performances, independent filmmaking and a willingness to play characters far outside the ordinary.