Back in the early ’90s, Elizabeth Berkley was Saved by the Bell‘s smart, outspoken, a little intense Jessie Spano. She was the kind of character who could go from student council speeches to that infamous caffeine pill meltdown without missing a single beat. Producers liked her so much that they created the Jessie role specifically for Berkley. But where has she disappeared to since the show ended?
In 1995, Berkley probably made the worst choice of her career by starring in Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven’s neon-lit film that was supposed to launch her into movie stardom. It never did. Even though the young actress gave the character of Nomi Malone, a dancer clawing her way through Las Vegas, her all, it just didn’t work out. “I thought, ‘That’s mine,’” she said about the role. But what followed wasn’t the Oscar buzz her team imagined. Instead, Showgirls flopped hard, critics tore it apart, and suddenly Berkley became the punchline of every joke on TV.
“It was my heart and soul,” Berkley once said about her work on the film, which makes what happened next hurt even more. “There was so much cruelty around it… I was left out in the cold.”
The failure was a huge wake-up call for Berkley. But she refused to quit and instead went for more acting classes and dance classes. She tried her hand at theatre and, surprisingly, on Broadway, critics who once dismissed her because of her role in Showgirls apologized. That doesn’t happen often in Hollywood.
Her personal life was better too. She married artist Greg Lauren in 2003 in Mexico, turning their wedding into a full-on event with salsa lessons and a Grease dance routine. By 2012, just before turning 40, she became a mom. “The moment we both saw him, it was love at first sight,” she said about her son, Sky Cole.
Elizabeth Berkley is 53 today. And by golly, she’s just as beautiful and adventurous as she was 40 years ago. Jessie Spano aged really well.
And no, she hasn’t forgotten about Showgirls either. The same film that derailed her career now plays to packed screenings. Who would have guessed that it would become a cult classic so many years later?
“If this young girl knew… she wouldn’t have believed it,” Berkley recently reflected on the film.
It’s funny how time works. One decade, you’re a cautionary tale about how hard it is to break it in Hollywood, even if you were a teen star. Then just three decades later, you’re a cult icon again. Go figure.
