Lea Katherine Thompson

Thompson was born May 31 of 1961, in Rochester (Minnesota) The actress was one of five children born to Clifford Barry Thompson who was a musician. She has two older sisters, Coleen Goodrich (and Shannon Katona) and two brothers younger than her, Barry and Andrew. Her mother is of Irish descent.She studied ballet as a girl and danced professionally at the age of 14, securing scholarships to the San Francisco Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the American Ballet Theatre.When she turned 20 years old older and was dancing professionally with the American Ballet Theatre's Studio Company (then known as ABT II), the moment arrived to decide if she should join the main company. Mikhail Baryshnikov who was then the artistic director, told herthat "You're an amazing dancer but you're too tall." She described that moment as "my epiphany" which led her to quit dancing and become a ballet dancer. It was an extremely memorable moment. If it wasn't for that, I would have been smashing my head into the wall for 10plus years. "[She began acting. She relocated to New York at the age of 20 and performed in several Burger King commercials in the 1980s with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Her co-star in Back to the Future Part II was Elisabeth Shue. and her first movie in 1983 with Jaws 3D. She described the film as "the very first movie I've ever seen, but I was lying and claimed that I'd seen several other films and when I turned up, I was really almost nothing about. I also claimed I could waterski. I didn't. That's why I had, five days to learn the most complicated water-skiing things, because I had to make it into the Sea World water-skiing show. I don't even know the way that swimming works!" The singer followed this up with All the Right Moves (1983), Red Dawn (1984) and The Wild Life (1984).