Lea Katherine Thompson

Thompson was born in Rochester, Minnesota on May 31, 1961. Thompson is the youngest of five children of Clifford Barry Thompson and Barbara Barry Thompson. She has two older sisters, Coleen Goodrich (and Shannon Katona) and two younger brothers, Barry and Andrew. Her mother is of Irish descent.She began ballet training as a young girl, and was dancing professionally at the age of 14 when she was awarded scholarships to the San Francisco Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the American Ballet Theatre.When she was 20 years young and had started her professional career with American Ballet Theatre's Studio Company (then known as ABT II), the time was right to make a decision on whether she wanted to move to the main company. Mikhail Baryshnikov was at that when the director of artistic. He said to her "You are a beautiful dancer, but your body is too big." According to her, it was "my epiphany " when I decided to put down my dancing and to not being a ballet performer. It was a wonderful moment. I could have smashed my head on the wall for the next 10 years. "She changed her attention on acting. In the year 20 she relocated to New York with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Elisabeth Shue and a few other Burger King ads. In 1982, CareerThompson appeared in Cecily "Sissy", the live-action game called MysteryDisc: Murder! Anyone? Jaws 3-D was her movie debut in 1983. I also claimed I was able to waterski. I wasn't. I had to master water-skiing techniques that were very difficult in five days because I had to be able to do the Sea World water skiing show. I don’t even know the way that swimming works!" She followed this with All the Right Moves (1983), Red Dawn (1984), and The Wild Life (1984).