Gretchen Mol life and biography

Gretchen Mol is an American actress and former model. She is known for her roles in films like Rounders, Celebrity, 3:10 to Yuma or The Notorious Bettie Page, where she played the title character. She was recently seen as Gillian Darmody in HBO's Boardwalk Empire.

Mol entertained performing ambitions from a young age, studying musical theatre in addition to receiving a regular public school education. Following her high school graduation, she moved to New York, where she did a stint at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and began performing in a number of stage productions. To support herself, Mol also worked a number of odd jobs, the most fortuitous of which was as a coat-check attendant at a popular industry restaurant. There she was "discovered" by an agent, who subsequently got her work in commercials and on the TV sitcom Spin City.

Mol made her film debut with a supporting role as a phone-sex operator in Spike Lee's Girl 6 (1996) and went on to do bit work in Abel Ferrara's The Funeral (1996), Mike Newell's Donnie Brasco (1997), and Stephen Kay's The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997). Although these projects afforded Mol the opportunity to work with the likes of Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken, Claire Forlani, and Adrien Brody, she was quickly being typecast into "girlfriend" roles that capitalized more on her looks than acting abilities. She did do more substantial work in Music From Another Room (1998), opposite Jude Law, but the film went virtually unnoticed by critics and audiences.

After 1998, which in addition to the Rounders debacle, also featured Mol as part of the all-star ensemble cast of Woody Allen's much anticipated -- and much lambasted -- Celebrity, the actress continued to work, albeit far from the limelight's glare. She again collaborated with Allen on Sweet and Lowdown (1999), portrayed actress Marion Davies in Tim Robbins' star-studded ensemble drama Cradle Will Rock (1999), and starred opposite Ray Liotta and Joseph Fiennes in Paul Schrader's Forever Mine (1999). Mol also directed some of her energy towards television, portraying Madge Owens in the 2000 remake of Picnic and starring alongside Madeleine Stowe, James Cromwell, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in Alfonso Arau's 2001 small-screen adaptation of The Magnificent Ambersons.

Films:

1996 Girl 6 ; Dead Man's Walk (TV mini-series) ; The Funeral ; Calm at Sunset (TV)
1997 Donnie Brasco ; The Last Time I Committed Suicide ; Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground (TV) ; The Deli
1998 Too Tired to Die ; Celebrity ; Rounders ; Finding Graceland ; New Rose Hotel ; Music From Another Room ; Bleach
1999 The Thirteenth Floor ; Cradle Will Rock ; Sweet and Lowdown ; Forever Mine ; Just Looking
2000 Picnic (TV) ; Attraction ; Get Carter
2002 The Magnificent Ambersons (TV) ; Girls Club (TV series) ; Freshening Up (TV short)
2003 Heavy Put-Away ; The Shape of Things
2006 The Notorious Bettie Page ; Puccini for Beginners
2007 The Ten ; The Valley of Light (TV) ; Trainwreck: My Life as an Idiot ; 3:10 to Yuma
2008 The Memory Keeper's Daughter (TV)
2009 An American Affair ; Tenure
2010 Boardwalk Empire

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