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| Born Kristen Swanson in Mission Viejo, California in 1969, Kristy has been acting since she landed her first commercial (for a dollhouse) at age nine. Between the ages of 9 and 13 she appeared in over 30 more commercials before leaving school to focus on acting full-time. (Kristy was home-schooled by her parents, retired phys ed teachers.) Swanson subsequently landed roles in films like Deadly Friend (1986), Highway to Hell (1992), and the sequel Mannequin 2: On the Move (1991)? And while these early parts were not exactly "Shakespeare in the Park," she did get roles in legendary 80s flicks like Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) and Pretty in Pink (1986) -- where she played Duckette, no less. (Swanson also showed up in TV series like "Growing Pains", "Knots Landing", "Nightingales", and "B.F. Stryker".) While Kristy has been lucky enough to land some plum post-Buffy roles, like Adam Sandler's love interest in 1999's Big Daddy and Christie Boner (!) in Dude, Where's My Car? (2000) her place in cinema history is most likely to be as the first -- and a very good -- vampire-slaying Buffy Summers. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) Kristy plays the reluctant heroine whose destiny is to be the latest in a line of teenage girls who must devote themselves to killing undead meanies and thereby saving humanity (and high schoolers). With Donald Sutherland and Luke Perry for support, Buffy uses her uniquely feminine gifts (her "keen fashion sense," cheerleading acrobatic skills, and yes, menstrual cramps) to thwart evil. Kristy does a good job as a typical California girl grappling with shallow friends, a new beau, death, with her unwelcome new responsibilities as the Chosen One. ("All I want to do is graduate from high school, move to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die.") |
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