Liv Tylers career began with fashion modeling and press curiosity over the fact that she was the daughter of legendary rock band Aerosmiths front man Steven Tyler. But she quickly transcended her rock royalty status and proved to be a considerable talent on the big screen, lending a beguiling luminous beauty and a calming kindness to independent films like Bernardo Bertoluccis Stealing Beauty (1996). Hollywood was at somewhat of a loss over Tylers unusual onscreen presence, which was too mature and ethereal for standard teen films. She was underused in blockbusters like Armageddon (1998) but steadily created empathetic and introspective characters for independent directors like Robert Altman and James Mangold. Her highest profile films were Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings trilogy, which deftly melded Tylers otherworldly serenity with a hugely popular fantasy franchise. After she hit the age of 30, the actress yearned to stretch her range and reached larger audiences with the thriller The Strangers (2008) and the comic adaptation The Incredible Hulk (2008).
Liv Tyler was born Liv Rundgren on July 1, 1977, in New York City, NY. Her mother, Bebe Buell, had been a Playboy Playmate only three years prior, and was known on the New York scene for dating rock stars including Rod Stewart, Todd Rundgren (whom she was living with at the time of Tylers birth), and Steven Tyler (whom she had an affair with during her relationship with Rundgren, and ultimately proved to be Tylers father). Tyler spent her early years in Portland, ME, where she shuttled between her mothers crazy household full of artists and musicians and the homes of her grandparents and aunt. Tyler discovered that Rundgren was not biologically her father when she was 11 years old, and when her mom moved her to New York City at the age of 12, the girl who had already been through a whirlwind longed for a normal, stable family life. Amidst all the tumult, the pre-teen had already hit 510 and wore a size 10 shoe, ensuring that life in a new junior high school in New York was not bound to get any easier.
But anyone who made fun of the early bloomer was no doubt jealous when Tyler made her modeling debut just two years later, appearing first in a photo spread in Interview magazine before going on to teen fashion magazines and TV commercials for Pantene hair products and Bongo jeans. Her appearance alongside future star Alicia Silverstone in Aerosmith's hugely popular "Crazy" video in 1994 really put her on the map as both rock star royalty albeit a touch creepy version, as she played a vixen in her fathers video and a breathtaking beauty. Modeling had already grown tiresome, so she shifted her focus to acting, where she was well-received by directors who were taken by her luminosity and appealing serene quality that was miles away from the standard teen comedy actress or tarted-up femme fatale. She made a strong feature debut in the unsettling role of a protective teenager who kills her sexually abusive father and complicit mother in Bruce Beresfords little-seen "Silent Fall"(1994).
Tyler credited director James Mangold with truly discovering her acting potential when he cast her as a kindhearted waitress and object of desire for an overweight pizza chef in "Heavy" (1995). She gave a solid performance as a twenty-something slacker in Allan Moyle's disappointing "Empire Records" (1995) before being unexpectedly courted by an Italian film legend. Bernardo Bertolucci had searched high and low for a lead for "Stealing Beauty" (1996), someone who could embody innocence and lust, wisdom and youth a virgin filled with desire. Paralleling her own mixed-up parentage, the film cast Tyler as a young American who arrives in Italy knowing one father and leaves knowing another. At the erotic center of Bertolucci's slow-paced meditation on the various forms of love, Tyler deftly captured the passage from childhood to adulthood, but critics were ultimately split over whether such lofty filmic aspirations were actually achieved.
The up-and-coming 19-year-old made her entry into mainstream American films with Tom Hanks "That Thing You Do!" (1996), where she was well-qualified to portray the girlfriend of a 1960s musician. She took a starring role in another coming-of-age tale, Pat O'Connor's rather anemic "Inventing the Abbotts" (1997), which cemented her empathetic image with her sensitive rendering of the meatiest of the three Abbott sisters. It also introduced her to actor Joaquin Phoenix and sparked the pairs romantic relationship, with the two seeming like a perfect match, given their unusual upbringings and New York-based disinterest in Hollywood life.
Michael Bays overblown disaster flick "Armageddon" (1998) marked Tylers first blockbuster film, but the predictably thin role of Bruce Willis' daughter and Ben Affleck's love interest barely gave audiences a taste of Tylers screen strengths. She was back on more familiar terrain in 1999, joining an all-star cast for Robert Altman's leisurely Southern Gothic comedy "Cookie's Fortune," where she won raves for her rough-and-tumble, catfish-cleaning, box-toting "worthless tramp" of a daughter. In Martha Fiennes' film adaptation of the Russian literary classic "Onegin, Tyler acquitted herself particularly well as Pushkin's Tatiana, proving she was more than a beautiful face with bountiful lips like her fathers.
Tyler re-teamed with Altman to play one of the many women of "Dr T and the Women" (2000) before taking center stage as the love object of three men (Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser), all of whom relay their tales of romantic woe at a neighborhood bar in Harald Zwart's failed comedy "One Night at McCool's" (2001). Tyler then took off for New Zealand where she was well-cast as Arwen, an elf princess who falls in love with a human, in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The three films were shot simultaneously, and their release schedules at Christmastime in 2001, 2002 and 2003 allowed Tyler to take a break for the first time in her decade-long career and pursue her other lifelong dream starting a family. In the spring of 2003 she married longtime boyfriend Royston Langdon, Brit rocker from the band Spacehog. The following year, she gave birth to the couples son Milo.
In 2004, Tyler again appeared opposite Ben Affleck in writer-director Kevin Smith's middling romantic comedy "Jersey Girl" (2004), playing a woman who re-opens a widowed father's heart to love. In her next project, Steve Buscemis well-done but little-seen drama Lonesome Jim (2005), she starred opposite Bens brother Casey Affleck as a single mom and nurse who reconnects with an old fling who has returned to their small town after a failed run as a novelist in New York. The film was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival but only received limited theatrical release. Tyler returned to mainstream drama with a supporting role an insightful therapist who tries to help a once-successful dentist (Adam Sandler) cope with the loss of his family during September 11th in the uneven Reign Over Me (2007).
Tylers announcement of her separation from husband Langdon in early 2008 was followed by a palpable shift in her career direction, the actress finally ready to shake off her image as the dependable good-hearted friend and lover. In a cathartic, scream-riddled performance, she played half of a young couple mysteriously terrorized at a vacation home in the heavily promoted horror thriller The Strangers (2008) before tackling her first butt-kicking actioner, The Incredible Hulk as the big green ones (Edward Norton) loyal girlfriend.
Copyright © Baseline 2009.