Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan (born September 5th, 1973 in Florence, Italy) is an American actress.
McGowan was raised in Italian communes of the Children of God, of which her French mother and Irish father were members. Her father was a leader of the cult's Italian chapter. Rose has said that even early on she was adamantly "un-hippy" and has never bought into that lifestyle.
The McGowan family (including 6 children, with Rose as the second oldest) relocated to Oregon when Rose was ten years old, at which point, not only could she not speak English, but she had yet to see a movie; in fact, it is claimed she didn't even know about them. Her education in the Children of God consisted of limited home schooling from her mother.
Five years later, Rose took off to live on her own, supporting herself with several odd jobs which she often had to lie about her age to get. Living on her own also meant being forced to live on the streets, but she soon got her act together and attended art and beauty school. Rose headed to Los Angeles, where she had a chance encounter with director Gregg Araki, who was busy casting his Sundance entry, The Doom Generation.
Araki cast Rose as the lead, despite the fact that the only acting experience she could claim at that point was a bit part in the 1992 Encino Man. The Doom Generation was a 1995 Sundance Film Festival entry, and although it received lukewarm reviews, it was enough to launch Rose's career.
Subsequently, she landed a role in the big budget thriller, Wes Craven's Scream (1996), which was a surprise hit. McGowan quickly gained a reputation for playing brassy, bitchy and often violent characters, and adding to this reputation she began a very public romance with shock-rocker Marilyn Manson (aka Brian Warner). McGowan and Manson were engaged in February of 1999, but McGowan ended it two years later over "lifestyle differences".
In 2001, she was cast as Paige Matthews in the hit television series Charmed.
