Daryl Christine Hannah (born December 3, 1960) is a American film actress. After making her screen debut in 1978, Hannah starred in a number of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s notably Blade Runner, Splash, Wall Street and Roxanne. Hannah has recently had a number of notable roles including the Kill Bill series.

Early life

Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Susan Wexler, a producer, and Don Hannah, a tugboat and barge company owner. Her parents divorced shortly after her birth and her mother remarried Jerrold Wexler, a businessman and brother of Haskell Wexler, a noted cinematographer. Hannah has been a vegetarian since age eleven. She grew up with siblings Don and Page Hannah, as well as half-sister Tanya Wexler.

Hannah became interested in movies at a young age, partly due to insomnia. She was very shy and diagnosed as "borderline autistic." Hannah attended the private Francis W. Parker School (where she played on the boys soccer team) and the Chicago Latin School before enrolling at the University of Southern California.

Career

Hannah made her film debut in 1978 with a brief appearance in Brian De Palma's horror film The Fury. Her first notable role came as the acrobatic and violent replicant Pris in Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner, in which she performed some of her own gymnastic stunts. She then was cast as a beautiful blonde mermaid in Ron Howard's 1984 fantasy Splash, which starred Tom Hanks and was a major financial success, establishing Hannah as a high-profile film actress.

Hannah's successes in the remainder of the 1980s ranged from Steel Magnolias and the Academy Award-winning Wall Street to the 1986 film version of the best-seller The Clan of the Cave Bear. She starred in the title role of Fred Schepisi's 1987 film Roxanne, a modern retelling of Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, a performance which was described as "sweet" and "gentle" by film critic Roger Ebert.

She also appeared in The Pope of Greenwich Village with co-stars Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts and played the daughter of Jack Lemmon in both of the Grumpy Old Men comedies. In 1995, Hannah was chosen by Empire magazine as #96 of the "100 Sexiest Stars in Film History." That same year she appeared as homicidal sociopath Leann Netherwood in The Tie That Binds.

Of her most recent roles, the most memorable may be that of the one-eyed assassin Elle Driver in Kill Bill Volume 1 and Kill Bill Volume 2, directed by Quentin Tarantino. Her performance in these films, as well as her appearances in Northfork, Michael Radford's Dancing at the Blue Iguana, John Sayles' Casa de los Babys and Silver City, have been described by some as a comeback.