Growing
up but never down
Fairuza Alejandra Balk had just been born, May 21, 1974. Her father
Solomon Feldthouse was a travelling musician, and her mother
Cathryn Balk was a belly dancer.
Fairuza grew up just north of San Francisco on a commune-type
ranch. Her mother later found some work in Vancouver; it was there
that Fairuza got her first acting job in a TV-movie, at age 9. Two
years later, they moved to England where Fairuza attended the Royal
Academy of Ballet, the Ramona Beauchamp Agency and the Bush Davies
Performing Arts School.
Fairuza would work for Disney for a while; at age 11 she was chosen
from out of 1,200 girls to play the part of Dorothy, starring in
Return to Oz (1985). A year later she would star as,
prophetically enough, The Worst Witch, a omen of her breakout
role in The Craft 10 years later. Fairuza and her mother remained
in London until 1988, and then headed to Paris where the
15-year-old Fairuza starred in Valmont.
The next year they returned to Vancouver where Fairuza enrolled in
high school. But, despite being a movie star, Fairuza was shy in
class; she ended up doing correspondence courses. Back in
Hollywood, Fairuza starred in a string of movies, including Gas
Food Lodging (1992) for which she received an Independent Spirit
Award for Best Actress. Following further TV and film work, the
beautiful Fairuza, now 53 and 100 lbs, achieved cult status with
her starring role as a teenage witch in her signature movie The
Craft (1996).
