- Born
- Birth nameJill Marie Schoelen
- Jill Schoelen is best known for a variety of popular film and television projects during the 1980s & 1990s. She began her singing/acting career as a young teenager, debuting in TV commercials. That led to film and television roles starting with The Best of Times, a TV movie opposite Nicolas Cage and Crispin Glover. She then starred in 16 motion pictures and numerous television projects, including The Stepfather, Popcorn, Phantom of the Opera, Babes In Toyland, When a Stranger Calls Back, D.C. Cab, That Was Then...This Is Now, and Billionaire Boys Club. Her many costars include Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Drew Barrymore, Terry O'Quinn, and Sean Penn.
Jill starred in Sean Penn's writing and directorial debut of his stage production, The Kindness of Women. She also starred opposite Sean in Hurlyburly in Los Angeles, winning the Drama-Logue Critics award for her performance. Jill also starred in Pepper Street, the longest running small-theatre musical in Los Angeles for five years in the late 1980s.
In the middle of a prospering career in the early 1990's, Jill decided to become a mother and left the entertainment business. In 2010, Jill returned to her first love of music, releasing her debut CD Kelly's Smile. With her business knowledge and background as an actress, singer and dancer, Jill became an early producer on the musical Baby It's You in Los Angeles before it made its Broadway debut in 2011. She has also produced stage productions of the critically acclaimed shows, The Standard Bearer in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2011/2012 directed by Julian Sands, and A Celebration of Harold Pinter starring Julian Sands in San Francisco in 2012 directed by John Malkovich.
In her young years as an actress in front of the camera, Jill had a private passion for behind the camera work as well. In the 2020s, Jill began pursuing many creative projects. Though her family is always her first priority, with everyone healthy and her boys now adults, Jill with her musical writing partner began writing and recording 21 songs for a new project, an Untitled Musical Dramedy. She has also been writing her memoir.
Jill returned to acting in 2023 starring in the feature film Mr. Christmas, a dark Christmas comedy scheduled for 2025 release, and the short film Stereo Vision.- IMDb mini biography by: Next Chapter Talent
- SpouseAnthony Marinelli(October 17, 1993 - December 15, 2002) (divorced, 2 children)
- Children
- ParentsDorothy Schoelen
- Dated Keanu Reeves, after working with him in Lisa au pays des jouets (1986).
- Her father is of German descent. Her mother is of half Swedish and half Mexican ancestry.
- She was engaged to actor Brad Pitt for three months, before she broke off the engagement in Budapest.
- Dated Brad Pitt briefly after starring with him in Profession : Tueur (1989).
- Living in the Los Angeles area with her kids and dog, Hercules.
- I happen to love certain kinds of horror. I just don't like cheap horror, made for the sake of slashing people up.
- I had some problems when I was a child. They were temporary but, for a child, even a few months can be a very long time. I learned to enjoy being alone and lose myself in make-believe--acting. It was healing for me as a seven-year-old. It still is.
- Men have their ideas of what sexy is. They want tight clothes and big pouffy hair. They don't necessarily see sexy as just getting out of the shower and throwing on a pair of jeans, a white t-shirt and tennies, while I do.
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