Elizabeth Arlen is an American actress and writer who was born on October 31,1955. An ageless beauty with the face and figure of a woman decades younger, on-screen and off, it doesn't take long to find yourself under her spell. She possesses an intensity, sharp wit, a penchant for bucking traditional gender roles, and a wild spark of passion for life that's evident in her every action. An empathetic, self-aware woman with a compelling personality and a strong voice; Arlen is all this, and more. Arlen was born Elizabeth Faye Arlen on the Camp Lejune Marine base to a Jewish father and Catholic mother, who met in New York at Syracuse University. Her parents moved to Los Angeles when Elizabeth was three. She was raised on North Amalfi Drive in Pacific Palisades, where her next door neighbor was Leonard Freeman, creator and producer of the original Hawaii Five-0 series. In the neighborhood lived Norman Felton, Jerry Paris, director Martin Ritt, and around the corner resided her father's best friend, Rod Serling. Despite growing up in the presence of Hollywood elite, Arlen didn't consider becoming involved in the entertainment industry until her college years. She credits her parents for her well-rounded sensibilities and education. Her father, Harold Arlen, was a prominent psychoanalyst, who was once portrayed by Karl Malden in Patty Duke's autobiographical film Call Me Anna. Her mother, Mary Arlen, was an accomplished and talented painter and sculptor. Her parents encouraged her to seek knowledge and experience activities she was interested in from a very early age. Never coddled, she was taught to fight her own battles and solve her own conflicts even as a child. Several times in her teens and early college years, talent scouts attempted to recruit Arlen, but her father refused to let her sign any contracts. She was raised on the principle that a college education was more important than anything else. In addition to being a great student, Arlen enjoyed athletics from a young age. She played basketball in elementary school and went on to become a sprinter in high school. It was much earlier in life, however, that her interest in both sports and acting would appear. Arlen started ballet at four, and was on stage at age six, when she performed in a ballet recital at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. In elementary school she would often re-enact scenes from movies for her friends on the playground at recess. Arlen was a natural performer from the start. The first time she thought she might enjoy acting was at age fifteen, when Arlen and her parents attended a production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" with The Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-Upon-Avon. She was captivated by the performance, and thought, "I can do that. "As a teen, however, she most wanted to follow a career path in law or psychology. Though she would soon fall into acting as a hobby, Arlen initially never intended to pursue it professionally. She was elected student body president in high school, and was very interested in politics. Arlen dreamed of fighting for human rights in her work. That strong sense of right and wrong, just and unjust, is still a vital and overt component of her personality today. She began her studies at UCLA at the age of sixteen to major in Psychology. In the summer after her first year of college, at seventeen, Arlen was chosen for the lead role of Lisa in a production of David and Lisa, whose character suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder (split personality). It was in that production she met David Madden, who was playing a supporting role. She would later marry Madden and spend the next twenty-eight years with him. Arlen had such a great experience with David and Lisa, and received such rave reviews, that she decided to apply to the drama department at UCLA. Her earliest inspiration, and the actor whose work most influenced her to pursue acting professionally, was Al Pacino. She was mesmerized by his iconic performances in Serpico, The Godfather sagas, and Dog Day Afternoon. While attending UCLA, Arlen appeared on Days of Our Lives, and studied acting in earnest for many years at the university, the Lee Strasberg Institute, and with teachers Joan Darling, Milton Katselas, and the legendary stage director, Jose Quintero. Quintero once said of Arlen, "She's a bottomless well of emotion, you can pull and pull and pull from her and she will never tire. " Even today, Arlen becomes passionate when she talks about how exhilarating it was to work with Quintero. She graduated from UCLA with a BA in Theater Arts and a minor in Psychology. Arlen approached acting as an opportunity to explore the psyches of the characters she would inhabit. "From a psychological standpoint," she once said, "you're on the outside, looking in. As an actor, you immerse yourself until you become the character, and are on the inside, looking out. " "It's fascinating how your rhythms organically change while you're preparing for a role. As you start to transform into the character; you begin to walk differently, your speech patterns alter, you start to unconsciously dress the way the character would. It's this subtle process of morphing that overtakes you in the most natural form. "Elizabeth Arlen describes herself as a method actor who took the task of becoming the character very seriously. In his personal blog, writing about the filming of The Kid, director Jon Turteltaub said of Arlen, "She's a fantastic actress, but she's not really onscreen that much. However, what she was doing off-camera was everything. Her off-camera performance carried Bruce [Willis] through. He relied really heavily on her to bring him to whatever emotional place he wanted to go. Again, it shows that no matter how small the role, a great actor can make a huge contribution. "After graduating college, Arlen began her acting career wholeheartedly in the theater. In addition to performing in various Los Angeles-based theater productions, she also joined Theatre West, an internationally acclaimed non-profit arts organization in Hollywood, whose members have included Richard Dreyfuss, Carroll O'Connor, Harold Gould, Beau Bridges, and Martin Landau. While working in the theater, she enjoyed alternating between dramatic and comedic characters.
