Debi Mazar

Debi Mazar
Mazar in 2009
Born	Deborah Anne Mazar (1964-08-13) August 13, 1964 (age 57) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1981–present
Spouse(s)	Gabriele Corcos ​ (m. 2002)​
Partner(s)	Paul Reubens (1993–1999)
Children	2

Deborah Anne Mazar Corcos (/ˈmeɪzɑːr/;^[1] born August 13, 1964) is an American actress and television personality, known for playing sharp-tongued women. She began her career with supporting roles in Goodfellas (1990), Little Man Tate (1991) and Singles (1992), followed by lead roles on the legal drama series Civil Wars and L.A. Law.

From 2011 to 2015, she had a starring role in the Cooking Channel series Extra Virgin, along with her husband Gabriele Corcos. She is also known for her role as press agent Shauna Roberts on the HBO series Entourage and starred as Maggie Amato on TV Land's Younger.

Early life[]

Mazar was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, the daughter of Nancy and Harry Mazar. Her father was born in the Latvian SSR, Soviet Union, to a Jewish family. She had no knowledge of her father's ancestry until her twenties as he practiced Catholicism.^[2] Mazar's parents annulled their marriage shortly after she was born,^[3] and she spent her early life in the country in upstate New York with her mother.^[3] As a teenager, she relocated to Long Island, where she lived with her godparents.^[3]

Mazar worked various odd jobs, including selling jewelry at Fiorucci with Linda Ramone and Joey Arias, later as a dental assistant, and at a nightclub.^[4]

Career[]

While working at Danceteria, Mazar met Madonna,^[3] who hired Mazar to do her makeup for the music video for "Everybody". Mazar also originated the hair and makeup for the play Speed-the-Plow.^[4]

Mazar began her career as a hip hop b-girl in New York City. Her first television appearance was on the pilot for a hip hop television dance show, Graffiti Rock in 1984.^[5] She appeared in five of Madonna's music videos^[6] – "Papa Don't Preach", "True Blue" (both 1986), "Justify My Love" (1990), "Deeper and Deeper" (1992) and "Music" (2000).^[7]

Mazar has played a number of minor supporting roles in a variety of films, including Sandy, a friend of Henry Hill's mistress in Goodfellas (1990); The Doors (1991); a small role in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992); Bullets Over Broadway (1994); and as Spice (of Sugar and Spice, with Drew Barrymore as Sugar) in Batman Forever (1995). She gained her first real following from playing a character on Civil Wars in the early 1990s. When that series was cancelled her character was brought over as a recurring role between 1993 and 1994 season of the TV drama L.A. Law.^[7]

She played the villain Regina, a modern-day Cruella de Vil, in the family film Beethoven's 2nd (1993). She has appeared in independent films Inside Monkey Zetterland and Nowhere and her short-lived sitcom, Temporarily Yours. She appeared as the genie in the Space Monkeys' music video, "Sugarcane".^[7]

Mazar appeared on a Friends episode in its eighth season ("The One Where Rachel Has a Baby, Part One"). Mazar played "Doreen, the Evil Bitch," a crazed pregnant woman who shares a hospital room with Rachel.^[8] In the 1999 docudrama film The Insider she played character Lowell Bergman's assistant Debi. From 2000-02 she played Jackie on the television drama That's Life. She provided the voice of Maria Latore in the video games Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).^{[citation needed]} Also in 2004, she made a cameo appearance in the movie Collateral in which she played the passenger while arguing with her boyfriend (Bodhi Elfman) while the movie's main protagonist, Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx), is driving them to their destination.

From 2004 to 2011, she had a supporting role on Entourage as press agent Shauna Roberts. She also had a recurring role on the sitcom Living with Fran, playing Fran Drescher's character's cousin, Merrill. She did a two-episode stint on the television series Ugly Betty as fraudster Leah Stillman.^[9]

Mazar was a contestant on the ninth season of Dancing With the Stars. She was partnered with Maksim Chmerkovskiy and finished in twelfth place, eliminated in the third week (October 6, 2009).^[10] In 2012, Mazar played Jessica, a glamorous, leather-clad villainess in Home Alone: The Holiday Heist.^[11]

Mazar began appearing on a Cooking Channel cooking/reality show television series in January 2011. She, her husband Gabriele Corcos and their two daughters star in the series, which depicts their lives, and showcases their own recipes. The show is scripted. The show has had four seasons as of June 2014. In 2015, Mazar and her husband started another series on the Cooking Channel entitled Extra Virgin Americana where they travel the U.S., road trip style, with their children and family friend searching for great food.^[12]

From 2015 to 2021, Mazar starred in Younger with Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff as Maggie. The series met critical acclaim and began filming its fifth season in February 2018.^[13]

Mazar appeared in the second season of The $100,000 Pyramid reboot on ABC on August 6, 2017. In the main game, she helped her contestant get 7 clues in only 15 seconds causing host Michael Strahan to say, "I think that's the quickest round we've ever had, 15 seconds!"^[14]

In 2018 she played Ava Gardner in the Spanish period comedy-drama television series Arde Madrid, telling the story of the period which the American actress spent in Madrid during Francoist Spain.

Personal life[]

Prior to her marriage, she dated actor Paul Reubens for several years beginning in 1993. Reubens has since credited Mazar with ending his depression resulting from his 1991 arrest.^[15]

She married Gabriele Corcos on March 16, 2002, in a ceremony officiated by Ellen Burstyn.^[16] They have two daughters, Giulia and Evelina. The family formerly lived in Los Angeles but moved to Brooklyn, New York in 2009. They opened a cafe/restaurant called Tuscan Gun. The family currently divides their time between Brooklyn and a 15th-century home outside of Florence, Italy, that was given to them as a wedding present by Mazar's in-laws.^[16]

Mazar has had several dogs, including a dog named Delores who was prominently featured in the first season of her show Extra Virgin, until the dog's death in 2011.^{[citation needed]}

Mazar and Corcos formerly hosted an internet show focused on Tuscan cuisine, Under The Tuscan Gun.^[17] On January 19, 2011, Debi and her husband Gabriele began hosting the cooking show Extra Virgin on the Cooking Channel, and released a cookbook, Recipes & Love From Our Tuscan Kitchen, in 2014.^[18][19][20]

Mazar and her husband both appeared on an episode of the ABC talk show The Chew in 2014 to promote their show, Extra Virgin.^[21]

On March 21, 2020, Mazar announced she had been diagnosed with COVID-19.^[22]

Filmography[]

Film[]

Television[]

Video games[]

Music videos[]

• Madonna: "Papa Don't Preach" (1986)
• Madonna: "True Blue" (1986)
• Madonna: "Justify My Love" (1990)
• Madonna: "Deeper and Deeper" (1992)
• Madonna: "Music" (2000)

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Debi Mazar.

• Debi Mazar at IMDb