Stage-trained Laura San Giacomo made an auspicious debut as the brassy, hedonistic Cynthia in Steven Soderbergh's low-budget 1989 hit, "sex, lies and videotape". Her career has flourished since, but with the exception of her supporting role as Julia Roberts' wisecracking hooker friend in "Pretty Woman" (1990), her films have not showcased the brown-eyed siren's sass so evident in her first performance. San Giacomo starred with Tom Selleck in the Australian Western "Quigley Down Under" (1990), registered weakly as a femme fatale opposite Liam Neeson in "Under Suspicion" (1992) and played a repressed woman embarking on an affair in the underappreciated small film, "Nina Takes a Lover" (1994). She also appeared in the superb ensemble of "Once Around" (1991) and had her moments in the Al Franken vehicle "Stuart Saves His Family" (1995).

On TV, San Giacomo has starred in the ABC movie "For Their Own Good" (1993) and in the highly acclaimed miniseries "Steven King's 'The Stand'" (ABC, 1994). She earned a CableACE Award nomination for her performance in Showtime's "The Right to Remain Silent" (1996), playing an HIV-positive high school teacher arrested for slicing open a vein at a school board meeting to protest her dismissal. Although she had made guest appearances on such series as "Crime Story", "Miami Vice" and "The Equalizer", San Giacomo landed her first regular role as Maya Gallo, a journalist working for her father (George Segal) at a trendy magazine, in "Just Shoot Me" (NBC, 1997- ). She was once all set to play the lead in a film on the life of Mexican artist-icon Frida Kahlo, but the project fizzled over protests about her non-Mexican heritage.