Marisa Tomei was born on December 4th, 1964 in
Brooklyn,
New York. Her parents are Gary A. Tomei and Patricia.
She studied acting and dancing in Junior High. During the summers she appeared in plays at the Golden Bridge Colony in upstate New York. Marisa attended Boston University for one year, but dropped out. She ended up having a small role in the movie The Flamingo Kid (with one line) and appeared in As The World Turns for eighteen months. Her major stage debut was in the play Daughters, which won her a Theatre World Award. She was in the off-Broadway play Beirut, which won her a Dramalouge Award. She was the title character in the afterschool special Supermom's Daughter, which won an Emmy Award. During the 1987-1988 television season, she had a regular role in A Different World. She then returned to the stage in a play called What the Butler Saw. She then played a floozy in Zandalee and was in the movie Oscar (with Sylvester Stallone) and Chaplin (with Robert Downey Jr and Milla Jovovich).
It was in the movie My Cousin Vinny that Marisa became known by the public-at-large, mostly because she won an Oscar for her performance. Her next project was Untamed Heart, which won her and co-star Christian Slater an MTV-movie award for best movie kiss. She appeared in a slew of non-commercial flicks such as The Paper with Michael Keaton and Only You, with Robert Downey Jr.
Most data taken from the Marisa Tomei Fan Club.