An oddly striking young woman with a somewhat squeaky voice from a tumultuous celebrity family with a host of infamous exploits checkering her own past, Bijou Phillips was name checked in many a gossip column long before making her acting debut. An actress and singer-songwriter with a frequently changing look most often topped with blonde close-cropped hair, Phillips got her start as a model, and counted among her credits a stint at age 13 in a controversial Calvin Klein advertising campaign. This daughter of The Mamas and the Papas founder John Phillips and South African model/actress/artist Genevieve Waite had an odd childhood, shifting from one drug-addled environment to another. By age 15, she was well-known among big city partygoers for her daring, attention-grabbing stunts and had a brief but much publicized affair with much-older rocker Evan Dando when only 16. Phillips had earned quite a reputation, and was known before long as the girl most likely to shock.

In 1999 Phillips released her debut album "I'd Rather Eat Glass" and had her first onscreen role with a cameo in the Alison Anders/Kurt Voss music industry comedy "Sugar Town". Now the performer had work of her own to address, and was clear in interviews that the wild life she had reveled in previously was behind her. She next took a starring role in James Toback's mostly ad-libbed 2000 feature "Black and White", starring as Charlie, an Upper East Side rich girl who appropriates African-American hip-hop lifestyle along with her similarly privileged friends. The film's daring opening scene featured her in an a menage-a-trois in Central Park with rapper Power and actress Kim Mutalova. Phillips was next seen as one of the "band aids", a group of girls who followed rock musicians around on tour in "Almost Famous" (2000) and then turned up as a teenage prostitute who runs afoul of the title character in "Bully" (2001).