Lea Thompson has accomplished a 40-year career in the arts that encompasses film, television, and theatre. A native of Minnesota, Thompson began her career as a professional ballet dancer and performed in more than 45 ballets with the Minnesota Dance Theatre. She is best known for playing Michael J. Fox’s mom in Back to the Future I, II and III; as the title character in the syndicated series Caroline in the City, for which she won TV Guide and People’s Choice Awards; and as Kathryn Kennish in five seasons of the groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning series, Switched at Birth. Her other notable films include All the Right Moves, Red Dawn, Howard the Duck, and Some Kind of Wonderful, in which she was directed by her future husband, Howard Deutch. Thompson has been directing TV for more than a decade, and makes her feature directorial debut with The Year of Spectacular Men, which is released theatrically on June 15. The film was written by and stars her daughter Madelyn Deutch, and the cast includes her daughter Zoey Deutch, Avan Jogia and Thompson herself. (Picture by Ray Garcia.)
