Biography (courtesy
of SuperiorPics.com)
The child of hippies, McGowan was born September 5, 1975,
in Florence, Italy, to a French mother and Irish father. The second oldest
of six children, McGowan was raised on an Italian commune run by the
Children of God cult. Her family relocated to Oregon when McGowan was
ten, and she left the commune at 15. She supported herself with a variety
of odd jobs and even lived on the streets for awhile before traveling
to Los Angeles to attend an arts school. It was there that she was discovered
by director Gregg Araki, who, as fate would have it, encountered her
outside of a gym. Araki was busy casting his Sundance entry, The Doom
Generation, and gave her the role of Amy Blue, the film's beautiful,
spoiled, and morally ambiguous protagonist. Prior to her role, McGowan
had only appeared as a minor character in 1992's Encino Man, making
her casting in Araki's film all the more fortuitous. The Doom Generation was
released in 1995, to mixed reviews and a fair amount of controversy,
but helped to establish McGowan as, if not Hollywood's Next Big Thing,
then Internet fodder for slavering males everywhere.
Subsequently, she landed a role in the big budget thriller,
Wes Craven's Scream (1996). The film was a surprise hit and McGowan's
turn as a frisky student who has an unfortunate encounter with a garage
door further widened her fan base. After starring in the 1997 TV movie Devil
in the Flesh, McGowan appeared in two back-to-back movies with fellow
rising star Ben Affleck. First came her turn as the girl who tries to
seduce a very excited Jeremy Davies in 1997's Going All the Way,
followed by her role in the ski slope thriller Phantoms (1998).
1999 saw her take the lead in the independent film Jawbreaker,
in which she starred with Rebecca Gayheart. As Alpha Bitch Courtney Shane,
McGowan excelled in a role that was equal parts vamp, tramp, and camp.
The film met with mixed reviews and lackluster box-office but helped
to cement McGowan's position as one of the most watchable guilty pleasures
of the late '90s.