Patricia Arquette: Biography

Actress Patricia Arquette is the granddaughter of Cliff Arquette, the daughter of character actor Lewis Arquette, and the sister of actors Rosanna Arquette, David Arquette and Alexis Arquette. Inaugurating her own film career in the mid-'80s, the actress came into her own with a gallery of fine portrayals in the '90s. In 1993 alone, she was seen as the hero's cousin/inamorata in Ethan Frome; the strung-out heroine in the stylishly violent road movie True Romance; and the hero's lesbian sister in Inside Monkey Zetterland. Arquette closed out 1994 on a fine note with her sympathetic portrayal of Kathy O'Hara, the second wife of Hollywood's "world's worst director," in Tim Burton's Ed Wood.

The following year included a starring role in John Boorman's Beyond Rangoon and a marriage to actor Nicolas Cage. In 1996, Arquette had lead roles in a number of films, most notably David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster, in which she played Ben Stiller's put-upon wife. She then switched gears with starring roles in David Lynch's Lost Highway and the thriller Nightwatch. She tried her hand at a Western in 1998, playing the object of Woody Harrelson's and Billy Crudup's desires in Stephen Frears' The Hi-Lo Country. Despite an interesting premise and excellent cast, the film flopped, but Arquette continued to work steadily the following year, with lead roles in the black comedy Goodbye Lover; Stigmata, in which she starred opposite Gabriel Byrne as the unwitting target of a supernatural phenomenon; and Martin Scorsese's Bringing out the Dead, a film starring Arquette's then-husband Cage as a burnt-out paramedic.

Following the weightiness of the creepy Stigmata and the disturbing Bringing Out the Dead, Arquette took things in a decidedly lighter direction with her next two projects. In 2000, she played Adam Sandler's love-interest in the comedy Little Nicky, while the following year found her opposite Tim Robbins in the off-the-wall Human Nature. Written by Being John Malkovich scribe Charlie Kaufman, Human Nature was the feature debut from acclaimed music-video director Michel Gondry and featured Arquette as a woman cursed with a coat of fur covering her body.

As the decade progressed, audiences could see Arquette in projects ranging from the star-studded documentary Searching for Debra Winger to the sleeper family film Holes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide