Julie Benz

Julie Benz
born May 1, 1972 is an American actress. For her role as Rita Bennett on Dexter, Benz won the 2006 Satellite Award for Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.
Early life
Benz was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father is a Pittsburgh surgeon and, contrary to rumor, her mother was never an ice figure skater.The family settled in nearby Murrysville when Benz was two, and she started ice skating when she was three. She competed in the 1988 U.S. Championships in junior ice dancing with her partner David Schilling, coming in 13th. Her older brother and sister, Jeffrey and Jennifer, were the 1987 U.S. Junior Champions in ice dancing and competed internationally. When Benz was 14, she had a bad stress fracture and had to take time off. She grew up in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, graduating from Franklin Regional High School. She later graduated from New York University.



Career
By 1989, with Benz's figure skating career over, she turned to acting and got involved in the local theater, where she got a role in the play Street Law. Her first movie role was a small, credited, speaking part in "The Black Cat" segment of the Dario Argento/George A. Romero co-directed horror flick Two Evil Eyes (1990).

A year later, she got a role on a TV show called Hi Honey, I'm Home (1991). The show was cancelled after two seasons.
After graduating from high school, Julie entered New York University to study acting. After graduation, Julie moved to Los Angeles to further pursue her career and landed some small roles in movies and TV shows, including a guest appearance on an episode of Married with Children in 1994 and a role in the Aaron Spelling unaired TV pilot Cross Town Traffic. She also starred as Christie Lambert in another unaired TV pilot called Empire in 1995. She went on to guest star in many TV shows which include Hang Time, High Tide, Step by Step and Boy Meets World. She also had a small role in the TV movie The Barefoot Executive. She had an uncredited role in Black Sheep and guest appearances in the shows Diagnosis Murder, Sliders and The Single Guy. She played Kristy in the TV movie Hearts Adrift and a lead role as Julie Falcon in Darkdrive.