Gabrielle Anwar Biography

Gabrielle: Born in Laleham, England on the 4th of February 1970, Gabrielle has a daughter named Willow (born 1993). At 19, daughter of a Persian film producer and an English actress, Gabrielle moved to Los Angeles with American actor and Grave co-star Craig Sheffer, whom she met while both were working in London. "He quoted some lines from a Hardy novel I was reading," she says. Gabrielle chose acting to keep from going to school. So after landing a role in the BBC miniseries Hideaway, she just kept working. Cleaning apartments between jobs, Gabrielle was called in to audition for what would become her breakthrough role, Al Pacino's tango partner in Scent of a Woman, or as she jokingly calls it, "Stench of a Wench". Her next part, as a hotelier's mistress in the Michael J. Fox comedy For Love or Money, was she says a "dreadful waste of millions. Both Gabrielle and Michael J worked well together, a perfect chemistry. And showed, without fail, what a perfect singing voice Gabrielle also has.


While the actress is pleased with her work as a woman with a mysterious past in The Grave, she's unhappy about the "princesses and ineloquent bimbettes" she's agreed to play along the way. Says Grave director Jonas Pate, "She's always cast as the beautiful woman. But she has this incredibly funny, dark sensibility."

Gabrielle continued to work steadily as the '90s progressed. In the meantime, Gabrielle married actor John Verea, had two children with him, and subsequently got divorced.

Gabrielle's star has risen once again, but this time it's on cable television. In 2006, she co-starred with Noah Wyle in The Librarian 2 on TNT, and she starred as Henry VIII's sister, Princess Margaret, on Showtime's hit historical drama The Tudors in early 2007. Gabrielle followed that up as a regular on the USA Network's comedy series Burn Notice, playing Fiona Glenanne, the IRA-connected ex-girlfriend of series star Jeffrey Donovan. Between acting gigs, raising her three children and taking care of her dog, Gabrielle likes to write screenplays and children's books.