Andie MacDowell

MacDowell was born in Gaffney, South Carolina, April 21, 1958, the daughter of Pauline "Paula" Johnston (née Oswald), a music teacher, and Marion St. Pierre MacDowell, a lumber executive. Her family owned an ante-bellum summer house in Arden, North Carolina. It has since been made into a bed-and-breakfast named the Blake House Inn. Graffiti from her childhood visits is preserved in an upstairs bedroom closet. She dropped out of Winthrop College as a sophomore in 1978, and moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where she spent several years with her sister Beverly (Babs), working as a waitress in one of the first "Disco" nightclubs emerging from the 70s Carolina Beach Clubs. Rose and her live-in boyfriend, Chuck Neal, the nightclub DJ, organized a fashion show at the club in Columbia, "Stage Door", that attracted among others, photographers affiliated with New York modeling agencies. MacDowell was discovered there almost overnight and signed with Elite Model Management.

Andie MacDowell Career

In the early 1980s she modeled for Vogue magazine and appeared in ad campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent, Vassarette, Armani perfume, Sabeth-Row, Mink International, Anne Klein and Bill Blass. In the May 1982 issue of GQ she appeared in a Bruce Weber layout with cover model Jeff Aquilon. A series of television commercials for Calvin Klein drew attention to her and led to her 1984 film debut in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, a role in which her lines were rerecorded by Glenn Close because her southern accent was too pronounced. In 1985, she had a small part in St. Elmo's Fire, but her film career seemed to have stalled.

Four years later, MacDowell hit her professional stride. Director Steven Soderbergh cast her in the 1989 independent film Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Her performance earned her an Independent Spirit Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress, several other award nominations and led to a series of starring roles in films such as Green Card, The Object of Beauty, and Short Cuts.

In the 1990s, she achieved stardom due to the box office success of the 1993 comedy by Harold Ramis, Groundhog Day, and the 1994 global blockbuster, Four Weddings and a Funeral (FWAAF), opposite Hugh Grant. Groundhog Day and FWAAF remain MacDowell's biggest box office hits to date.

MacDowell currently appears in print and television advertisements for the cosmetic and haircare company L'Oréal.

Andie MacDowell Personal life

MacDowell was married from 1986 to 1999 to fellow former model and rancher Paul Qualley, whom she met while both were posing for Gap ads. The couple have a son, Justin and two daughters, Rainey and Sarah Margaret. She was married to Atlanta, Georgia businessman Rhett Hartzog from 2001 to 2004.

MacDowell currently resides in the town of Biltmore Forest, North Carolina near the city of Asheville. She is an avid hiker and general outdoors-woman.