First earning fame as a witty,
agile comic actress on TV, smart, leggy beauty Téa Leoni was poised for
Hollywood movie stardom by the late '90s. Born Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni
and raised in New York City, Leoni graduated from boarding school in Vermont and
headed to Sarah Lawrence College to study psychology.
After
several years of modeling and TV commercials, Leoni made her film debut as the
"Dream Girl" in Blake Edwards' farce Switch (1991). A small part in
A League of Their Own (1992) and starring roles in the short-lived Fox sitcom
Flying Blind (1992) and the TV movie The Counterfeit Contessa (1994) brought Leoni
more attention. While she co-starred as the obligatory female-witness-in-peril
in the blockbuster actioner Bad Boys (1995), Leoni's gift for acid wit and goofy
physical comedy turned her into a TV star that same year in the sitcom The Naked
Truth. Despite a network change, The Naked Truth lasted three seasons; Leoni further
bolstered her comic reputation with her performance as a high-strung psychology
student in David O. Russell's excellent screwball comedy Flirting With Disaster
(1996). While The Naked Truth mined TV laughs out of tabloids, Leoni's own personal
life became paparazzi fodder when she married X-Files heartthrob David Duchovny
in 1997. After taking a turn for the serious as a reporter in the first 1998 asteroid
blockbuster Deep Impact, Leoni took a break from acting to have a daughter with
Duchovny in 1999. Leoni returned to movies in 2000 with a charming performance
as Nicolas Cage's beloved in the syrupy dramedy The Family Man.
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Tea Leoni Nude Gallery