Lea Thompson

Lea Thompson was born May 31, 1961, in Rochester, Minnesota, the daughter of Barbara, a singer and musician, and Cliff Thompson. She studied ballet as a girl and would practice three to four hours every day. She was dancing professionally by the age of 14. She won scholarships to several ballet schools, including the American Ballet Theatre, the San Francisco Ballet and the Pennsylvania Ballet. Thompson danced in more than 45 ballets with the American Ballet Theatre. She also danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Minnesota Dance Theatre and the Ballet Repertory.

Thompson was told by ballet legend and then ABT artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov that she was "a beautiful dancer, but too stocky." Due to this (as well as some small nagging past injuries), she decided to give up dancing in favor of an acting career. She moved to New York at age 20 and performed in a number of Burger King advertisements in the 1980s along with Elisabeth Shue, her eventual co-star in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III.

Thompson has been married to film director Howard Deutch since 1989, who she first met on the set of Some Kind of Wonderful. Thompson had previously been engaged to Dennis Quaid, her Jaws 3-D co-star.

Thompson and Deutch have two daughters, Madeline (born 1991) and Zoey (born 1995), with whom she sang on stage in the "Bye Bye Birdie" production for the 16th annual Alzheimer's Association "A Night at Sardi's" in March 2008. Thompson has stated that her Career Break to raise her children has helped with her subsequent potrayal of Soccer Mom Kathy Davis/Jane Doe.

Thompson has a brother, Andrew Thompson, who made a successful career with the Colorado Ballet. They both took ballet classes in their youth and he even helped her pay for classes. Oddly enough, in Colorado ballet circles, she's known as "Andrew Thompson's sister." She also has a sister, Colleen Thompson, who is a writer.