Penelope Ann Miller
(Joyce Paulmarie)

Penelope Ann Miller is the daughter of Mark Miller, an actor best known for his starring role on the mid-'60s television sitcom Please Don't Eat the Daisies. Ms. Miller was born in California and raised in Texas. After a year of at Menlo College, she moved to New York to train with acting coach Herbert Berghof. Her performance as Emily opposite Eric Stoltz and Spalding Grey in Our Town (1988) earned her a Tony nomination. She had already made her film debut in the wacky comedy Adventures in Babysitting (1987), but attracted more notice as ditsy ingenue Daisy in the film version of Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues (1988), a role she had also played on Broadway. In 1990, in addition to work in several films including Downtown and The Freshman, she landed the role of teacher Joyce Paulmarie opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop. In common with 'Cop' director Ivan Reitman and her costars, Miller would include work with actor Danny Devito on her resume. In her case the project came the following year in the role of DeVito's adversary in Other People's Money (1991). Miller's biggest challenge came in 1993 in the part of Al Pacino's girlfriend in Carlito's Way. The role helped to redefine her image by adding some grit to the succession of girl-next-door characters she often played. Some of Miller's best known film roles include that of silent film actress Edna Purviance in Chaplin (1992), and the 1930s pulp heroine Margot Lane in The Shadow (1994). Miller's recent big screen work includes Full Disclosure (2000), Killing Moon (2001), Along Came a Spider (2001) and Lisa Picard Is Famous (2001).