Madeleine Stowe is the daughter of an Oregon civil-engineer father and a Costa Rican mother. She grew up in Eagle Rock, a working-class suburb of Los Angeles. At ten years of age she began training for a career as a concert pianist with Sergei Tarnowsky, Vladimir Horowitz's childhood instructor. Stowe loved the piano, and "practicing for hours every day was an excuse to stay away from other kids." However, when Tarnowsky died in 1976, Stowe quit playing. "I just felt it was time to not be by myself anymore," she stated. And so, at eighteen, she went on her first date. 

Madeleine studied cinema and journalism at the University of Southern California (USC) for a short time before taking up acting at the Beverley Hills' Solaris Theater. This led to TV work on such shows as Little House On The Praire, and Baretta. Since then she has achieved quite a number of film credits. Most notably with such renounded directors as Robert Altman in Short Cuts, and Michael Mann in Last Of The Mohicans. 

Madeleine divides her time between Los Angeles and her ranch in Texas, which she shares with her husband, thespian Brian Benben, and their daughter, May. 

Credit: mm52.com