A striking brunette who has consistently delivered feisty and compelling acting turns despite the uneven quality of her projects, Annabella Sciorra perhaps is perhaps best-known as the working-class bride-to-be in Nancy Savoca's "True Love" (1989), the Caucasian Brooklynite who begins an affair with a married Black architect in Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever" (1991), and the new mother coping with the all-too-efficient nanny in "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" (1992).

Born and raised in Connecticut, Sciorra studied dance as a child and eschewed college to pursue her dream of acting. By age 20, she