An energetic, quirky actress who first gained notice as the tough-as-nails surfer girlfriend of Keanu Reeves in Kathryn Bigelow's action-packed "Point Break" (1991), Petty spent her childhood trailing her minister father all over the US, before finally becoming a graphic artist in Omaha, NE. Acting classes and auditions in New York and Los Angeles followed. She spent much of the late 1980s in unsuccessful TV shows, such as the series "The Thornes" (ABC, 1988) and the movies "Bates Motel" (her debut in a limp 1987 comedy, NBC), "The Line" (also NBC, 1987), "Monster Manor" (ABC, 1988), "Perry