Renee
O'Connor was born on February 15, 1971 in Katy, Texas.
She is the second child of Walter and Sandra O'Connor. She has an older
brother named Chris. In 1973 her parents divorced and her mother remarried
Chuck Gibson, a business man.
Renee's first taste of acting came when she was eight
years old with a traveling acting troupe called "Theatre on Wheels".
She auditioned for and got the part of a caterpillar.
At the age of 12,
she enrolled at the Houston Alley Theater of Acting, determined to make
acting her career. From there she entered Taylor High School but at the
age of 16 she transferred to Houston's High School for Performing and Visual
Arts.
In 1988
she got her first talent manager - Lee Peterson - and began getting paying
acting jobs. After appearing in such commercials as McDonalds and Exxon
she began filming an episode titled "Teen Angel" for the Mickey
Mouse Club Series on Disney at the age of 17. They liked her work on the
show so much that she was asked to come back to film a second episode titled
"Match Point".
In
early 1989 she filmed in a small movie called Black
Snow. In late 1989 she left Texas to move to Los Angeles, California
and gained her first real big break - an episode of Tales From The Crypt
directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Switch. This same year Renee's
mother and Chuck divorced.
In 1991 Renee's mother married her third husband, Eddie Wilson, the owner
of the Threadgill Restaurant in Austin, Texas. Around the same time Renee
landed the role of Jessica in the made-for-TV movie of Danielle Steel's
Changes.
In 1992 she had a small part in FBI
- The Untold Stories: Blue Fiber.
In 1993 she was offered a number of roles including two TV movies: Sworn
for Vengeance and The
Flood: Who Will Save Our Children? The Flood would gain her first
real recognition in the press. She also played the part of Julia Wilks in
the television movie The Adventures of Huck Finn and would play a small
but key part in an episode of NYPD Blue titled Oscar,
Meyer, Wiener
In 1994 Renee's acting career would change forever. She was discovered
by Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert and cast in Hercules and the Lost Kingdom
in the role of Deianeira.
They were so impressed by her comic role that they asked her to also play
the role of Laurie Brinkman in their direct-to-video movie Darkman
II: The Return of Durant.
After Darkman II she appeared in two more movies in 1995: Follow the
River and The Rockford Files before Raimi and Tapert called her
back yet again to audition for the role of a side-kick by the name of Gabrielle
for their new television show they were about to launch.
On September 4, 1995 Sins of the Past aired and Xena:
Warrior Princess the television show was born and immediately becomes
a hit.
On September 27, 1997 season three of Xena: Warrior Princess premiered
with The Furies. On October 5, 1997 Renee
appeared at her first convention in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
In 1998 Reneé
attended her first Emmys with co-star Lucy Lawless. This small town girl
from Katy, Tx has hit the big time.
In the Fall of 2000 Reneé married long-time boyfriend, Steve
Muir in Austin, Tx. The wedding was kept under wraps, and no media was
present. Though she didn't adopt his last name as her screen name, It's
uncertain if she changed it legally.
In March 2001 Reneé announced she was pregnant!
On September 22, 2001 Reneé and husband Steve welcomed their first
child, a son, Miles
William Muir into their family. He weighed in at 8lbs, 8oz.
During the summer of 2002 Reneé moved from her home in Auckland,
NZ to Northern California to take part in Shakespeare By the Sea's production
of Macbeth. She played the part of Lady
MacBeth.
In June 2003 she appeared with a cavalcade
of fire fighters to help raise money for the The
Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation.
Renee is currently working on an independant film called "Diamonds
and Guns." She found out about this script through the lighting director
that worked with her on Dangerous Prey (the 6th season episode she directed.)
In an official release to Creation she said "I chose this script out
of all the ones I've been looking at because it was one of the funniest
I'd read. It has an energy on the page which I hope translates to the screen
and the audience." There is no projected date of completion at this
time. It is being geared towards film festival showings.
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Info curtosy of The
Scully/Xenaverse as well as various articles and transcripts. Oh, and
myself of course. ^_^
