| Rachel Matheson | |
 | |
| Unknown | |
| Name | Rachel Matheson |
| Alias | --- |
| Age | --- |
| Before the Blackout | |
| Mother of Charlie and Danny. Married to Ben Matheson. Along with Ben and Grace she designed the device responsible for the Blackout. | |
| After the Blackout | |
| She works for General Monroe to get the lights back on. | |
Biography
Elizabeth Joanna Robertson was born on March 27, 1970 in Los Angeles, California. In the same year she and her mother moved to Dallas, Texas, where her mother married Joseph Mitchell in 1975.
Her stepfather, Joseph Day Mitchell, and mother, Josephine Marian Mitchell (née Jenkins), are lawyers based in Dallas; they are real estate and tax attorneys with their own firm about 5 blocks from their house in the wealthy area of Highland Park of the city. Elizabeth is the older one of 3 sisters, Kristina Helen “Kristie” Mitchell (1978) and Katherine Day “Kate” Mitchell (1982).
Her grandmother was an enormous movie and theatre fan and used to take her to everything she could, so she fell in love with acting and the world of entertainment as a fan. When her mother was attending the law school, she used to drop her off at a theatre school.So Elizabeth knew at a young age that she was going to become an actress.
Her stage debut was at the Dallas Theatre Center at the age of 7 in the role of Alice in a production of “Alice in Wonderland”.
She worked pretty much every job in the theatre and spent six year working at the Dallas Theatre Center since she was 13 and one year with its Encore Company. She also thaugh kids when she grow older.
Nobody ever thought she’d really become an actress, but she did it. People kept saying she will never work in this business, but that just made her more determinate.
She graduated for the Performing and Visual Arts in 1988 from Booker T. Washington High School located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, then went on to earn a B.F.A. in Acting from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri in 1991. Though she wanted a stage career in her hometown, Elizabeth instead began performing in regional and summer stock theater in Missouri and Iowa. Her theatrical stage credits include productions of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, “Measure for Measure”, “Baby” and “Chicago”, among many others.
After College she travelled to London where she studied Shakespeare at the British American Drama Academy, an acting school composed of students from around the world who study with some of Britain’s more accomplished thespians. She went to theatre quite every day to see all the shows on the West End, and played Rosalind in “As You Like It” at the Embassy Theatre.
“Three Sisters” had the biggest effect on her, because she had to play all the three sisters. After finishing her studies in London she returned to Dallas where she had hope to stay, but all the amazing theatre groups there were gone, so she followed the path of all aspiring thespians and went to New York.
She moved there and lived with her boyfriend David Lee Smith (ex-Brent on the soap “One Life to Live”) on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. They had been together from 1994 until 1999.
Elizabeth got her first regular television role, Dinah-Lee Mayberry on the daytime soap “Loving” in 1995. Because of her Shakespearean training, Elizabeth took her role very seriously and used to make a lot of suggestions about the scripts, so she was fired after six months and she went back on stage.
She understudied one of the lead in the hit play of Edward Albee’s off-Broadway production, “Three Tall Women.”. When the show hit the road Elizabeth joined the cast and travelled with them to Los Angeles where she stayed for a long time.
In 1996 she appeared again on television in an episode of “The Sentinel” before landing a regular role on the short-lived drama, “L.A. Firefighters” (unfortunately canceled after 5 episodes) as the wife of a captain.
In 1997 she appeared as guest star in JAG as Lt. Sandra Gilbert, a fighter pilot facing court martial after being accused of fraternizing with a married enlisted man.
She returned to regular television work with the short-lived drama series, “Significant Others” (1997-98), because they asked her to and she really like the people involved.
Elizabeth said she made “L.A. Firefighters” just because she had never been on TV before, except for “Loving”, and even though both roles (on “Significant Others” and “L.A. Firefighters”) were miniscule and not even particularly interesting, as she said herself, she took the jobs but never had a stake in whether or not they worked.
At the time she was broke and sleeping on floors. That’s when she claims she found her lucky charm: a man’s shirt. She took it and after that, good things started happening.
Her breakthrough performance, alongside Angelina Jolie in Michael Cristofer’s much acclaimed HBO movie “Gia” (1998), captivated audiences and critics. It was certainly her first controversial role. Linda is a make-up artist whom the supermodel Gia Carangi felt in love with.
In 1999 she had her first theatrically released film, “Molly”. After being a recurring in the “Party of Five” spin-off, “The Time of Your Life” (2000), she starred in the made-for-TV movie “The Linda McCartney Story” (2000) as the former Rolling Stone photographer Linda Eastman, who goes on assignment to photograph The Beatles.
It’s based on real-life story about the woman with whom Paul McCartney felt in love, and her tragic battle with breast cancer.
At first, Elizabeth didn’t want to play such a high-profile part, but the more she looked into it, the more she was attracted by her, a fascinating and complex woman. It’s a role spanning a few decades, so she got to play young and old.
She almost didn’t get the part. It had nothing to do with competition or doubts whether or not she could handle it, but casting her was also part of a behind-the-scenes drama. They wanted Elizabeth all along, but CBS also wanted her to cast in a pilot. If she got that part, she couldn’t play Linda McCartney.
They were running out of time and had no backup. Finally someone else got the role in the pilot and she was free to do the movie at the last minute while everyone else was already casted.
On that set in Vancouver, Elizabeth met the actor Gary Bakewell, who played Paul McCartney, and they fell in love with each other not just on screen. In the same year she got the supporting role of Julia in the movie “Frequency” alongside Dannis Quaid, who has nothing but good things to say about Elizabeth and her professionalism: even after she broke her nose shooting a scene, she did not miss a beat. Because of the time-travel aspect of the movie, Elizabeth got to play again a young and an old of the same character.
In 2000 she also played a soap-opera actress in Neil LaBute’s “Nurse Betty” and she was offered to be a major recurring character in the hit medical-drama ‘ER’. While she was supposed to be just a guest star in one episode, the producers were amazed by her performance and wrote her in for 14 episodes.
In 2001 she kept herself busy both with cinema and television. She guest starred in an episode of “Spin City”, then played supporting roles in the films “Double Bang” and “Hollywood Palms”. In the same period Elizabeth fought for the role of Alice on the tv series “The Beast”. She said she auditioned fairly strenuously for it because she felt in love with that part. She worked on the series with her Lost future co-star Naveen Andrews.
In 2002 she returned to collaborate with her partner, Gary Bakewell, as the two of them starred in the made-for-TV movie “Man and Boy”. If “Gia” helped boost her profile to people in the entertainment industry, her 2002 role as Principal Carol Newman/Mrs. Claus in Disney’s movie “The Santa Clause 2” helped make her a recognized public face, giving the actress plenty of opportunity to explore more high-profile parts.
Disney wanted a bigger name for the role but Tim Allen persisted Elizabeth was perfect for it and the production realized he was right.
She guest starred episodes of both “Law & Order: SVU” and “C.S.I.” and then was hired as a regular on “The Lyon’s Den”, a drama set in a law firm that dealt with the relationships between the clerks and the partners. The show, which the network had high hopes for since it starred ex-“West Wing” star Rob Lowe, was scraped after NBC aired just the pilot episode, but they filmed 13.
After that she gained guest parts on well-established shows, including “Boston Legal”,“Everwood” and “House”. In 2004 she filmed a pilot for a TV show called “Gramercy Park” about an actress married to a successful Broadway director who resents the transition to motherhood, but it never got picked up.
Then she played Dale Earnhardt’s third wife in the tv movie “3: The Dale Earnhardt Earnhardt Story”.
On June 13, 2004 Elizabeth married Chris Soldevilla, an actor and stand-up comedian, whom she had started dating in 2002, and gave birth to C.J. (Christopher Joseph) on September 4, 2005.
In 2006 she got a small dark role as Edele, a paedophile, in the movie “Running Scared” then worked on a pilot for a series called “Haskett’s Chance”, but the show never got picked up.
Finally in 2006 Elizabeth landed another breakthrough role on the TV phenomenon, “Lost”, as the fertility doctor Juliet Burke, one of the most ambiguous characters of television (at least till you know her back-story) who become a fan favourites and one of the most beloved characters of the tv.
She started as one of The Others, and then, during the season, she joined the group of the losties.
After the first year shooting in Hawaii, she bought an house on Bainbridge Island, Seattle, Washington, where she lives with her family.
In the same year she went back on big screen playing again Mrs. Claus in the sequel “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Claus”.
Her role on “Lost” gained her much attention from both critics and audience; from 2006 to 2009 she received 4 nominations for the Saturn Award as the Best Supporting Actress on Television and won in 2008. For the same character she also won the Break Through Award. After Season 5′s finale Juliet’s fate was at stake, she had been let go from Lost, so she took another job, playing the leading role of FBI Agent Erica Evans on “V”, the reimagining of the 80’ miniseries “Visitors”. Due to all the support from fans and critics, who want her back for the last season, Lost’s creators called her and asked her to play once again Juliet for the last season.
At the same time she were busy shooting in Vancouver the first season of “V”, and in Hawaii the first and last episodes of “Lost” season 6. Her performance in “The End”, the series finale, made her earn an Emmy nomination as best guest star on television in 2010.
After shooting the second season of “V”, in March 2011 Elizabeth worked alongside Jeremy Irons as guest star in an episode of “Law and Order: SVU”. The series producers wanted to do that episode for years and when they finally wrote it, Elizabeth was their first choice. They needed an actress who was able to go into a very dark place due to the fact that June Frye is a piano teacher accused of raping and killing one of her students.
On May 13, 2011 ABC canceled V, but not before Elizabeth’s performance got her another Saturn Award nomination as best leading actress on television.
Elizabeth’s latest role is Kate in the indi movie “Answers to Nothing”, released on December 2, 2011 in theatre.
Thanks to Elizabeth Mitchell Fan Club for this biography.