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Samantha Mathis (born May 12, 1970) is an American actress.
She was born in Brooklyn, New York to Vienna-born actress Bibi Besch (who died from breast cancer aged 56 in 1996). Mathis is the granddaughter of Austrian-born actress Gusti Huber. When she was three years old, her parents divorced. She stayed with her mother. This exposed her to the acting world from a young age and thus influenced her career choice.
Her first starring role in a feature film was the part of Nora in Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater, whom she was dating at the time. Mathis began dating River Phoenix when they starred together in The Thing Called Love. She was with him the night that he died. Like Phoenix, Mathis is also a vegetarian.
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