Mary Sean Young was born on November 20, 1959, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Lee Guthrie, an Emmy-nominated producer, screenwriter, and journalist, and Donald Young Jr., an Emmy award-winning television news producer and journalist. She has Irish, English, and Swiss-German ancestry, and grew up with an older brother, Donald Young III, and a sister, Cathleen Young, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Young attended Cleveland Heights High School, before transferring to and graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy. A trained dancer, she studied at the School of American Ballet in New York City and did some modeling. Her early film career began with a Merchant-Ivory film, Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980),directed by James Ivory, and she followed this up with the comedy hit film Stripes (1981),directed by Ivan Reitman.
Young soon found herself working with important directors, including Garry Marshall in Young Doctors in Love (1982),David Lynch in Dune (1984),and Ridley Scott in Blade Runner (1982),which is often cited as her most respected film. In 1987, she appeared in two big movies, including Oliver Stone's hit film Wall Street, and the thriller No Way Out, which featured a famous steamy scene with Kevin Costner and cemented her star status.
However, a training accident for the role of Vicky Vale in Batman (1989) led to her losing the part to Kim Basinger, which turned out to be the biggest hit of 1989. Young bounced back with comedies Fatal Instinct (1993) and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994),the latter of which helped launch Jim Carrey's career and earned him the role of the Riddler in the Batman sequel.
Today, Mary Sean Young resides in Austin, Texas, where she has founded a new business venture, Austin Film Tours, which is the city's first and only film location tour.
