Alicia Silverstone



Alicia Silverstone ( pron.: /əˈliːsiə ˈsɪlvərstoʊn/ ; born October 4, 1976) is an American actress, film and television producer, author, and animal rights and environmental activist.Following The Crush, which gave Silverstone the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, she starred in such films as Clueless and Batman & Robin, where she played Batgirl.

A vegan, Silverstone endorsed PETA activities and published a book titled The Kind Diet.

Early life
Silverstone was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of parents from the United Kingdom - Deirdre "Didi" (née Radford), a Scottish-born former Pan Am flight attendant, and Monty Silverstone, a real estate agent born in England. She has two older siblings, a half-sister from her father's previous marriage named Kezi Silverstone and a brother named David Silverstone. She grew up in an upper-middle class home in the San Francisco suburb of Hillsborough, California. Her father was born to a Jewish family and her mother converted to Conservative Judaism before marriage She began modeling when she was six years old, and was subsequently cast in television commercials, the first being for Domino's Pizza. She attended Crocker Middle School and then San Mateo High School.

Personal life
Silverstone married her longtime boyfriend, rock musician (for the band S.T.U.N.) Christopher Jarecki in a beachfront ceremony at Lake Tahoe, on June 11, 2005. After meeting outside a movie theater in 1997, the couple dated for eight years prior to their marriage. They got engaged about a year before their marriage and Jarecki presented Silverstone with an engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother.

Silverstone and Jarecki live in an eco-friendly Los Angeles house complete with solar panels and an organic vegetable garden. She bought the house, shared with a "menagerie of rescued dogs," in 1996.

In 2009, Silverstone released The Kind Diet, a guide to vegan nutrition, and launched its associated website The Kind Life. The Kind Diet has topped the Hardcover Advice & Misc. category of The New York Times Best Seller list. She plans to write two follow up books, The Kind Mama and The Kind Diet Cookbook.

In January 2011, it was announced that Silverstone and Jarecki were expecting their first child together. In May 2011, Silverstone gave birth to a boy, whom they named Bear Blu Jarecki.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;">In March 2012 she uploaded video of herself feeding pre-chewed food to her son from her own mouth, a process called premastication. In response to criticism she made a statement that its been going on for thousands of years, and is perfectly natural.

[edit] Political beliefs
<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;">Silverstone is noted for being an animal rights and environmental activist. She became a vegan in 1998 after attending an animal rights meeting, saying "I realized that I was the problem … I was an animal lover who was eating animals."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-autogenerated2_38-2" style="line-height:1em;">[38]  She has stated she struggled with childhood vegetarianism, stating "at eight years old it's hard to stick to your guns – and so through the years I was always starting and stopping trying to be a vegetarian." In 2004, Silverstone was voted "Sexiest Female Vegetarian" by PETA. In 2007, Silverstone appeared nude in a print advertisement and 30-second commercial for PETA championing vegetarianism; the TV spot was subsequently pulled from the Houston, Texas market by Comcast Cable. Silverstone has set up a sanctuary for rescued pets in Los Angeles. In 2012, during the trial of Russian band Pussy Riot, she wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin asking that vegan meals be made available to all Russian prisoners.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;">Federal campaign contribution records list Silverstone contributing $500 USD to Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign.She also supported Barack Obama's presidential candidacy.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;">In 2009, she appeared in "A Gaythering Storm", a Funny or Die spoof internet video parodying anti-same-sex marriage commercial "The Gathering Storm." She also appeared in "My Mother's Red Hat" with Alanis Morissetteparodying indie movies.