Linda Cardellini Biography

Linda CardelliniLinda Cardellini, the naturally dark-haired film and television actress who plays nurse Samantha Taggart on ER, once appeared on the game show The Price Is Right in 1993, where she won a fireplace. She was born on June 25, 1975, in Redwood City, California, as the youngest of four children to parents, Wayne David Cardellini and Lorraine Hernan.Linda began acting at an early age. When she was ten she sang a song in a school play. She liked being on stage so much that she soon began attending drama courses and getting involved in other school productions.She graduated from Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, California, in 1993 and three years later she received her first acting break when she landed the starring role of Sarah on ABC's Saturday morning children's live-action series, Bone Chillers. Over the next couple of years she made guest appearances on other prime-time programs like Step by Step, Clueless, and 3rd Rock from the Sun.In 1997 Linda appeared in her first film with a small part in the comedy Good Burger. She next appeared in the 1998 dark comedy Dead Man on Campus, where she acted the role of Kelly, the girlfriend of a violent college student named Kyle who was played by Jason Segel. The same year she played Internet predator victim Genevieve Gage in the thriller Strangeland.During the 1998 to 1999 season Linda appeared in recurring roles on the television shows Guys Like Us and Boy Meets World. In 1999 she had a supporting role in the UPN made-for-TV movie Dying to Live, and the miniseries The Lot, where she played a young starlet in 1930s Hollywood.Next Linda acted in the starring role of character Lindsay Weir in eighteen episodes of the NBC series Freaks and Geeks. Her Dead Man on Campus co-star Jason Segel also appeared in the same episodes as Nick Andopolis. Freaks and Geeks was cancelled in 2000 after only twelve episodes had been aired. The show received many positive reviews, but didn t have a sizable viewership.In 2001 Linda began dating co-star Jason Segel, the same year she graduated with a degree in theater from Loyola Marymount University's College of Communication and Fine Arts. The two remained a couple until February of 2006.Later in 2001 she landed a small role in the hit comedy Legally Blonde, and played the part of Shelly Hunter in the thriller The Unsaid. In 2002 she co-starred along with Freddie Prinze Jr. in Scooby-Doo. She also appeared in the movie's sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed in 2004.In 2003 Linda joined the cast of ER as nurse Samantha Taggart and narrated the voice of the heroine in the role-playing video game Gladius.

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