Lori Petty

Early life

Petty, the oldest of three children, was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the daughter of a Pentecostal minister. She graduated from North High School in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1981, and worked for several years in Omaha, Nebraska, as a graphic designer before pursuing acting.

Career

Petty first came to notice for playing the surfer who taught Keanu Reeves how to surf in the 1991 action thriller Point Break. Prior to that, she got her break starring with Richard Grieco in Fox's Booker. In 1992, Petty was featured in what became her best-known role, A League of Their Own, opposite Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, and Madonna.

She played the title role in the film adaptation of the British cult comic book Tank Girl in 1995. Her other films include Free Willy, The Poker House, and In the Army Now. She also co-starred in the television series Lush Life with her friend Karyn Parsons, but it was cancelled after five episodes. She joined the cast of Brimstone as the owner of Stone's hotel.

Petty is also known for providing the voice of the supervillain Livewire on the Warner Bros. series Superman: The Animated Series, and The New Batman Adventures. Although she was originally cast as Lt. Lenina Huxley in Demolition Man, disagreements over the character's direction led producer Joel Silver to recast the role with Sandra Bullock. Petty played the role of "Daddy", an alpha female inmate in Prison Break: The Final Break.

She starred in a series of television commercials created by Merkley Newman Harty's Steve Bowen for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association's "Go, Baby, Go" advertising campaign in 1998.

Petty's directorial debut, The Poker House — a film dramatizing her own difficult childhood — won awards at the Los Angeles Film Festival. She narrated the first three books of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series -- One for the Money, Two for the Dough, and Three to Get Deadly. C.J. Critt read the unabridged version for Recorded Books. Petty read the abridgments for Simon & Schuster.

Legal problems

On September 4, 2009, Petty pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge for drinking and driving. She was sentenced to five years probation.