Jami Gertz

Gertz came up through the 1980s teen picture and never entirely got out of it, which turned out to be a career rather than a trap. She was still in her teens when Endless Love gave her an early credit in 1981 and Square Pegs made her Muffy Tepperman a year later. Sixteen Candles, Mischief, Quicksilver and Solarbabies followed in quick succession, along with Crossroads in 1986.

What she does better than most of that cohort is play someone who has already given up on a room and is calculating how long she has to stay in it. Star in The Lost Boys is the hinge the whole film turns on, half hostage and half recruiter, and Gertz plays her drowsy rather than seductive, which is a far stranger choice than the material asked for. Blair in Less Than Zero is the same instinct pushed harder, a young woman narrating her own decline with total composure.

Twister in 1996 handed her the biggest hit of her career and also ended her run as a movie regular. The second act was network comedy: Judy Miller in the CBS sitcom Still Standing, then Debbie Weaver in ABC's The Neighbors, both shows better served by her timing than by their writing. She works occasionally now, including a supporting turn in I Want You Back in 2022, and away from acting she is a co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks with her husband, Tony Ressler.