Rosanna Arquette

Arquette was born in New York City, the daughter of Mardi Olivia, an actress, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher and therapist, and Lewis Arquette, an actor and director. Arquette's paternal grandfather was comedian Cliff Arquette. Arquette's mother was Jewish, the daughter of a Holocaust refugee from Poland, and her father was a convert to Islam and claimed to be a descendant of explorer Meriwether Lewis. Arquette's siblings are actors Patricia, Robert, Richmond and David Arquette. Arquette is also the sister-in-law of Courteney Cox, who is married to Arquette's brother David.

In 1963, Arquette's family moved to Chicago, where her father managed The Second City theater for several years. When she was eleven years old, her parents moved to a commune in Front Royal, Virginia. Arquette did not do well at school. In 1974, she hitchhiked across the country with three older teenagers, eventually going to San Francisco, where she worked at renaissance and Dickens fairs. Her professional theater debut was May 27, 1977, appearing in the Story Theatre Musical Ovid's The Metamorphoses at the Callboard Theatre on Melrose Place in Los Angeles.

In Hollywood, she had her first roles playing teens with troubles. A few years later she started to act in mature roles. Besides films, Arquette appeared from the beginning of her career in television films. In 1982, she earned an Emmy Award nomination for the TV film The Executioner's Song. Thereafter, she played in many cinema movies and TV films and has worked with many of the most acclaimed film directors of the last twenty years. Arquette's first starring role was in John Sayles's Baby It's You, a highly regarded but little seen film. She starred in Desperately Seeking Susan alongside pop singer Madonna. After Hours also played to her comedic talents but failed to find an audience while 8 Million Ways to Die was buried by the studio. For a time, she quit Hollywood to work in Europe.

Arquette also appeared in the short running What About Brian as Nicole Varsi. She also has appeared on Showtime's The L Word as Sherri Jaffe.

Arquette was nineteen when she married director Tony Greco; they divorced in October 1980. Arquette briefly dated Toto member Steve Porcaro; the band's Grammy Award-winning single "Rosanna", the lead track on the album Toto IV, was named after her, but the song itself was not about her, according to writer David Paich. In a 1983 interview with Rolling Stone, Arquette said that she used to bring the band "juice and beer" at all hours of the night during their recording sessions. Her 1986 marriage to composer James Newton Howard ended in divorce as well. The reconciliation with an old love of Arquette's, English pop and rock star Peter Gabriel, proved also to be impossible. Arquette married restaurateur Jon Sidel in 1993. One year later their daughter, Zoe Blue Sidel, was born. Arquette went on working intensively, which meant she was often away from home. The couple divorced in 1999. Arquette got engaged to entertainment executive, David Codi, in September 2001.

More recently, Arquette has focused her energies on spending time with her daughter and promoting awareness of breast cancer, while continuing with her work, now also as a director. Her mother had died of breast cancer in 1997. In 2002 her critically acclaimed documentary Searching for Debra Winger was released. In the film, Arquette interviews prominent and respected actresses (mostly between the ages of 30 and 60) in an attempt to find out whether it was practical for a working actress to successfully maintain a family.