December 29: Actress & "singer" Alison Brie - "Mad Men," "Community" & "Santa Baby" is 31-years-old today.

-----

Alison Brie was born in Hollywood, California and grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of South Pasadena. Interested in acting at an early age, she began her career performing in community theater shows at the Jewish Community Center in Los Feliz. Her very first role was "Toto" in the Wizard of Oz.

After graduating from South Pasadena High School in 2001; Alison attended California Institute of the Arts where she received her BFA in Acting. While there, she was one of the original cast members in the world premiere of The Peach Blossom Fan, performed as the inaugural theater production at Disney's REDCAT Theater in Downtown LA.

During that period, Alison also studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland.

Since graduating, she has continued to work in all forms of media, including film, television, and theater. She has performed in the Blank Theater Company's Young Playwright's festival and in shows at the Odyssey, Write-Act, and Rubicon Theaters, receiving an Indy Award for her haunting performance as "Ophelia" in the Rubicon's production of Hamlet.

She has performed guest spots for Comedy Central. One of Brie's first television roles was the minor character Nina, a novice hairdresser, on Hannah Montana in 2006. She also landed leading roles in a few independent films before landing her TV roles as Trudy Campbell on Mad Men in 2007 and Annie Edison on Community.


On April 15, 2010, Brie co-hosted G4's Attack of the Show. Brie has also appeared for a short segment on the G4 show, Web Soup.

She has a role in the upcoming film Montana Amazon. She made Maxim's 2010 Hot 100 list at number 99. She has a role in Scream 4 due out in April of 2011.

In 2012, she starred in The Five Year Engagement with Emily Blunt.
 

(Continued below video and Amazon portals ...)

------

As Trudy Campbell on Mad Men.

In an interview appearing in PopMatters in November 2009, Alison said she's a big fan of the Beatles, that Abbey Road is her favorite album and her favorite song “Strawberry Fields Forever. ”

Here's an excerpt from the interview: "I’m pretty much in love with Magical Mystery Tour, it may even be my favorite, but Abbey Road is the greatest album ever.



As Annie Edison on Community.

"I mean, The White Album is pretty extraordinary, and pretty much plays like a greatest hits record or something, but Abbey Road is a complete experience. It’s everything an album should be. It takes you on a journey. The songs flow upwards and downwards and conjoin and pull apart.

"Abbey Road is the greatest album because I would prefer to listen to most of the songs on it only in conjunction with the other songs on it. Okay maybe just the second half, but how wonderful to have songs that stand on their own but only become more powerful when mixed with their buddies on the album.

From Men's Health magazine 

It’s a storybook. It is a four-course meal. It makes the listener feel delighted, silly, sexy, lustful, sentimental, loving, reflective, nostalgic, etc. without seeming choppy and disconnected. It’s a masterpiece. Also, the cover art is pretty iconic. I mean, the full package." 




####