Born on Mar 11, 1982 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Reportedly 5' 4".

When I first saw Thora in American Beauty, I wasn't terribly moved. Sure, she was cute and top-heavy to boot, but the young bottle-brunette was still in that awkward, gangly, teenage stage of development, and was generally just a little too ... unripe. Even for this site. Since the movie, though, she's been looking a lot better with each new picture I see of her as she slowly morphs into what looks like a young Carla Gugino. But it's not for her looks that I added her to The Iconophile — not entirely, anyway.

Nor did I induct her on account of her being an interesting variation of the sort of cliched career arc so often seen on this site: Thora did pretty well for herself as a child actress (she was the little girl with Wilfred Brimley in those old Quaker Oats commercials), but then she hit that awkward pre-pubescent phase where she was too old to be the cute, precocious kid and too young to legally play anyone's adult love interest. This no-hire period might have spelled the end of her, as it has for so many other child actors whose memories are now preserved only on E!'s True Hollywood Stories, but then came American Beauty, a stroke of luck that put Thora back on the map — and not just because it was a popular, award-winning film. Even if Thora does nothing memorable for the rest of her career, her immortality was assured with those few topless seconds in American Beauty, stills of which have been floating around the internet even before the movie came to video. Of course, whether or not she can build on that immortality and have something other than American Beauty on her tombstone is another matter.

For the time being, though, the next few movies she makes will already have a built-in market of horny fanboys, but one whose ticket-paying interest will go flaccid if not re-inspired now and then by more nudity. If Thora's smart, she'll make sure those next few films do indeed feature a nude scene or two. After all, the road to being yesterday's darling like Uma Thurman or Denise Richards on account of starring in so-so films with no compensating nudity is a depressingly short one. (Given a choice between paying to see a mediocre film starring Uma Thurman and a mediocre film staring Rose McGowan, I'll take the McGowan flick; the film will suck either way, but at least McGowan is more likely to get naked in it than Uma.)

No, the real reason I at long last chose to add Thora to my little pantheon has to do with Dungeons & Dragons — and Thora's role in its cinematic knee to the groin.

Yes, D&D, that oft-vilified, clandestine game with the funky dice that was something of controversial phenomenon back in the early 80s. I myself had very little idea what it was about until my mom bought the Beginners Set back when I was a freshman in high school — a year or so after all the hoopla had died down. After it became clear that the game was not going to be something like Sorry! or Yahtzee that the whole family could play for an hour after dinner, I was left the only one with any interest in the game, an interest that swelled into obsession after the anti-D&D movie Monsters & Mazes aired and all my D&D paraphernalia became contraband in my house. Suddenly I was a nerdy rebel, hiding and re-hiding my forbidden stash to prevent my parents from making good on their vow to set it all ablaze in the barbecue pit, and conscious of being part of some larger nerdy movelet that was under constant fire from parent groups and religious yahoos who were all convinced that D&D would lead their kids to Satanism and/or suicide. It was then, while opening the box for some D&D-related accessory, that I saw the thing that would finally slay the TSR beast where all the Bible-thumpers and zealously scapegoat-hunting parents could not: a product questionnaire that asked, among the usual sorts of questions, “Would you be interested in seeing a Dungeons & Dragons movie?”

Oh oh.

Now as much as I loved Dungeons & Dragons (although in practice I never got to play it all that much), even then I could see that any D&D movie would be a bomb, because

1. TSR was a game company with no movie-making experience;
2. D&D worked well as a game, building as it did on the popularity of books and movies like The Lord of the Rings, but as a major motion picture would seem to the general public too much a Tolkien rip-off to warrant any respect;
3. D&D was loved and hated for too many reasons for TSR to accommodate or nullify them all, and any movie they made, no matter how good or bad, would be doomed to please only a very few;
4. the pressure on the film due to its association with the game will be such that unless it was really, really good, it would still be pronounced a bomb.

That is, until now.

Writer/producer/director Courtney Solomon's 10-year dream of bringing the game to the big screen has finally come true, and, having seen the trailer and the stills, I think I can safely say that all my worst fears for such a film have come true as well. Sure, the game company isn't itself making the film — New Line Cinema is — and the project does offer Thora, whom I'm anxious to see now that she's a little older, as its central Girl. But there the perks end and my high school prophesies of doom begin. The movie in general seems to be a combination of every bad swords-and-sorcery flick you've ever seen and The Phantom Menace — imitating even the universally despised Jar-Jar Binks character — all of it stitched together with TV-quality special effects and a lot of inane banter and over-the-top acting between tiresomely generic characters. Of course, we'll see what actually happens with the film when it comes out, but if Dungeons & Dragons is going to be Thora's next career step — one that I'm fairly sure will be a faltering one, and one that won't have the saving grace of any nudity to keep the internet fires burning for her — my advice to her is to whip those clothes off as fast as she can come the next film before the public's interest in her slips into the same portable hole now keeping Uma, Denise, and most everyone else on this site from the limelight.

Also sprach Golem.
(More recent commentary below)

Daddy’s Little Girl
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Most parents are obnoxious in their love of bearing witness to every milestone in their kid’s life — their first bowel movement, their first word, their first step, and so on. And in Thora Birch’s case, first sex scene.... Read more

Disappearance Act
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Like with so many other actresses nowadays, Thora Birch appears to be on a strict all-coke diet. Great news for whoever it is out there that still finds the Olsen twins hot. Terrible news for the rest of us.... Read more

Career Eclipse
Tuesday, October 1, 2002
By now most Thora Birch fans have seen the new commercial for Eclipse gum — and some are wondering if her career bubble has already burst.... Read more

Deep Throat Unclogged
Friday, April 26, 2002
It turns out that Thora Birch’s lineage might be more interesting than Luke Skywalker’s.... Read more

Ghost World
Saturday, August 18, 2001
It’s not often that I can say this about someone one this site, but it looks like Thora Birch has beaten the odds and made another really good movie.... Read more

Roll for Damage
Sunday, December 10, 2000
Well, the verdict is in: Never, but never let someone direct a film chiefly because that person was a huge fan of the material.... Read more

“They’re Real, and They’re Spectacular!”
Monday, October 30, 2000
Was Thora Birch’s nudity in American Beauty faked?... Read more

Film

• Winter of Frozen Dreams (2008) .... Barbara Hoffman
• Slingshot (April) .... (2005)
• Frail (2007) .... Chloe
• Shamrock Boy (2007) .... Nulla McGarvey
• Dark Corners (2006) .... Karen Clarke/Susan Hamilton
• Tainted Love (2006) .... Mia
• Vinyl (2005) .... Julie
• The Dot (2004) .... Narrator [voice]
• Silence Becomes You (2004) .... Grace
• Silver City (2004) .... Karen Cross
• Ghost World (2001) .... Enid
• The Hole (2001) .... Elizabeth Dunn
• Dungeons & Dragons (2000) .... Empress Savina
• The Smokers (2000) .... Lincoln Roth
• American Beauty (1999) .... Jane Burnham
• Anywhere But Here (1999) .... Mary [uncredited]
• Alaska (1996) .... Jessie Barnes
• Now and Then (1995) .... Young Tina 'Teeny' Tercell
• Clear and Present Danger (1994) .... Sally Ryan
• Monkey Trouble (1994) .... Eva Boylan
• Hocus Pocus (1993) .... Dani Dennison
• The Itsy Bitsy Spider (1992) .... [voice]
• Patriot Games (1992) .... Sally Ryan
• All I Want for Christmas (1991) .... Hallie O'Fallon
• Paradise (1991) .... Billie Pike
• Purple People Eater (1988) .... Molly Johnson

• Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003) .... Liz Murray
• Shadow Realm (2002) .... Susan Thornhill
• Night Ride Home (1999) .... Clea Mahler

• MTV 2002 Movie Awards (2002) .... Nominee (best line, best dressed)
• Touched by an Angel: “The Pact” (10/26/1997) .... Erin
• Promised Land: “Running Scared” (2/4/1997) .... Allison Rhodes
• The Outer Limits: “The Choice” (4/28/1995) .... Aggie Travers
• Monty (1994) .... Ann Sherman
• Parenthood (1990) .... Taylor
• Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989) .... Megan
• Day by Day (1988) .... Molly

• The Secret World of Spying (1992) .... Sally Ryan

Cyber Temples

• Thora Birch
  All Movie Guide
• Thora Birch Nude Celebrity Movie Reviews
  Mr. Skin
  Bio, filmography, and nude stills from her films
• Thora Birch
  Wikipedia
  Thora Birch in wikireality

Miscellaneous

• Thora Birch for The Sims 2
  An attempt at making Thora into a Sim
• Thora Birch
  Internet Movie Database
  Always up-to-date filmography