On this date in 1989, actress Elizabeth Chase Olsen was born in Sherman Oaks, Calif., to Jarnette (née Jones) and David Olsen, respectively a former ballet dancer and personal manager and a real estate developer and mortgage banker. Her twin sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley, older by two years, gained fame as child stars via the ABC series “Full House” (1987-1995).
Olsen started acting at age 4. Her parents divorced when she was 7. She appeared in her sisters’ 1994 TV film “How the West Was Fun.” Her debut film role was in “Martha Marcy May Marlene” (2011), earning several award nominations for playing a young woman suffering from delusions after fleeing a cult. She received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination and graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2013.
Olsen next appeared in the horror film “Silent House,” the thriller “Red Lights” and the comedy “Liberal Arts.” She played Edie Parker, novelist Jack Kerouac’s first wife, in the biographical drama “Kill Your Darlings.” She played the leading role in “In Secret,” an adaptation of Émile Zola‘s 1867 novel “Thérèse Raquin.”
Olsen gained worldwide recognition as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe media franchise, appearing in the superhero films “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015), “Captain America: Civil War” (2016), “Avengers: Infinity War” (2018), “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) and the TV miniseries “WandaVision” (2021). Her performance in WandaVision garnered her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” also featuring Wanda Maximoff, was released in 2022 as the 28th film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Olsen and actor Boyd Holbrook were in a relationship from 2011 to 2014. She dated musician Robbie Arnett of the band Milo Greene for three years and then revealed in 2021 that they had married.
PHOTO: Olsen at the 2012 Critics’ Choice Movie Awards in Hollywood, Calif.; photo by s_bukley/Shutterstock.com.
