Diane Louise Salinger is an award winning actress and director who has worked with Clint Eastwood, Woody Allen and Tim Burton. She is slated for two upcoming films: ELF ACADEMY and DANTE’S INFERNO. Salinger has performed in films opposite Academy Award Winning Actors Forest Whitaker, George Clooney, Michael Caine, William Hurt, Jane Fonda, and also Danny DeVito, Gary Oldman, Jeff Bridges, Paul Reubens and Steve Buscemi. Audiences will remember her as Simone, the waitress in the Cult Classic PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE. Diane’s TV credits include CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Comedy Series, ER, LAW AND ORDER, NYPD BLUE, and she played the mother fortune-teller in the HBO series CARNIVALE.

Salinger has taught many actors and filmmakers including Catherine Hardwicke, who directed THIRTEEN, LORDS OF DOGTOWN and THE NATIVITY STORY. She also directed and choreographed excerpts from ANNA KARENINA for Oprah Winfrey and her Book of the Month Club. Diane began teaching acting to at-risk kids in response to the L.A. riots. Diane now has her own acting school in Los Angeles, where she has taught and directed for the past thirteen years. CBS recently sent her to teach Native Americans in Haskell University in Kansas, and she has also taught at the University of Alabama and in the opera department at the University of California.

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