Lauren Tom Biography

Fast Facts

• Channeled adolescent teasing over her ethnicity into a successful tryout for A Chorus Line, jump-starting her early career in theater
• Caught her Hollywood break after an ad-libbed role in Cadillac Man led to a Tonight Show appearance that caught the eye of Cheech Marin, who cast her in a pilot
• Credits her dog's nervous behavior for her timely purchase of earthquake insurance two days before the 1994 California quake
• Discovered she grew up in the same Illinois town as one of her late '90s neighbors, Curt, whom she married soon thereafter
• Portrayed her grandmother and other relatives from her Chinese-American childhood in a one-woman comedy, 25 Psychics
• Collaborated with her mother to publish The Bubble Gum Machine, a children's book focusing on lessons of diversity