A comely brunette character player, Thompson gave up a ballet career for acting. After appearing in some 20 Burger King commercials, she gained attention in "All the Right Moves" (1983) as the girlfriend of high school football player Tom Cruise. Thompson played three versions of Lorraine (Bates) McFly in "Back to the Future" (1985), rose above lackluster material in "Howard the Duck" (1986, directed by husband Howard Deutch), and demonstrated her ability to play more complex characters in "The Wizard of Loneliness" (1988). She demonstrated her dramatic range and brought grit to the role of a dying wife who selects Farrah Fawcett as her successor in the period western "The Substitute Wife" (ABC, 1994). In 1995, Thompson opted to head up the NBC sitcom "Caroline in the City", as the title character, Caroline Duffy, a cartoonist whose illustrations mirror her life.
Family
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Brother: Andrew Thompson. older
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Brother: Barry Thompson. older
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Daughter: Madeline Deutch. born March 23, 1991; father Howard Deutch
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Daughter: Zoey Deutch. born December 1994
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Sister: Colleen Thompson. older
Significant Others
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Companion: Dennis Quaid. lived together c. 1983-87
Milestones
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1979 Danced professionally and studied on scholarship with such companies as the Pennsylvania Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet and the American Ballet Theater s second company, Ballet Repertory
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1983 Cast opposite Tom Cruise in All the Right Moves
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1983 Feature film acting debut, Jaws 3-D
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1984 Starred with Patrick Swayze and C. Thomas Howell in John Milius Red Dawn
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1985 Breakthrough screen role as the young version of Michael J Fox s mother in Back to the Future
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1986 Appeared in SpaceCamp about a group of campers who accidently get launched into space
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1986 Had leading role in the unfortunate Howard the Duck , directed by future husband Howard Deutch
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1987 Starred opposite Eric Stoltz and Mary Stuart Masterson in Some Kind of Wonderful written by John Hughes
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1988 Starred in the comedy Casual Sex? with Victoria Jackson and Andrew Dice Clay
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1989 Reprised role of Michael J Fox s mother in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III (1990)
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1989 TV debut, Nightbreaker
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1992 Cast in Article 99 about a group of doctors in a veteran s hospital
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1993 Played Alice Mitchell in the genial big screen comedy Dennis the Menace
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1995 TV series debut as title character in NBC sitcom Caroline in the City
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1998 Starred in the NBC miniseries A Will of Their Own
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2000 Played Sally Bowles in a touring company of Cabaret
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2004 Joined the cast of Ed for three episodes playing Ed s philandering ex-girlfriend.
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2005 Will Star in Jane Doe, one of three Mystery Movie franchises developed for the Hallmark Channel
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Appeared in over 20 Burger King commercials
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Joined a professional dance company at 14