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What happened to Twelve Monkeys star Madeleine Stowe?

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Digital Spy

Madeleine Stowe is a name you don't hear mentioned much any more, but in the late '80s and early '90s she was absolutely EVERYWHERE. Both beautiful and fiercely talented, Stowe studied concert piano alongside journalism and film-making, and after a half-decade of TV tryouts, went stellar on the big screen.

You could see her in cop-rom-com Stakeout in between Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez; opposite Kevin Costner in Revenge; next to Jack Nicholson in China Town sequel The Two Jakes, directed by Nicholson himself; and then, the biggies: The Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day-Lewis, and Twelve Monkeys with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

It was Mohicans that pushed Stowe into the A-list. In an epic love story set in 1757 that garnered critical and commercial success, she played a colonel's daughter who is rescued by a group of Mohicans while being escorted through the Adirondack Mountains in America.

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

But it was Twelve Monkeys that developed the cult following, Stowe playing the sympathetic psychiatrist who encounters Willis's time traveller in Terry Gilliam's sci-fi head-spinner.

Photo credit: Universal
Photo credit: Universal

Other notable roles included Robert Altman's celeb-fest Short Cuts, where she played Tim Robbins' wife; Blink, playing a blind musician caught up in a spate of murders connected to transplants; and co-lead in Western Bad Girls with Drew Barrymore and Andie McDowell

By 1995, Stowe was topping 'most beautiful actress' lists all over the place, and had become a household name.

So, where did Stowe go?

Stowe took time out to look after her daughter May in 1996, returning two years later with Kenneth Branagh and William Hurt in The Proposition, as well as taking (not especially memorable) roles opposite John Travolta, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone.

Her last big-screen role was as the lead in horror Octane opposite The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus, before he was particularly famous.

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

But while the big screen might be missing her, Stowe has made a comeback in recent years on the small screen.

In 2011, she bagged the role of Victoria Grayson, socialite and chief nemesis to Emily VanCamp's avenging angel in the glossy ABC drama Revenge. The show ran for four seasons and Stowe bagged a Best Actress Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal as scheming Victoria.

And, hey presto: she was back at No. 5 of People Magazine's Most Beautiful Women list in 2012.

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Stowe may well be heading back to the big screen, too – but in a different capacity. She's been working on a Western called Unbound Captives, which she co-wrote with her husband Brian Benben and may potentially direct. A few years back, Hugh Jackman had signed on to star, but sadly scheduling conflicts between the two of them made it impossible.

The status of that project is currently unknown, but we'd be super happy to see Stowe back, in whatever capacity she chooses.


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