Melissa George, an Australian actress, was born in 1976 in Perth, Western Australia, as the second of four children. Her parents, Pamela, a nurse, and Glenn George, a construction worker, influenced her early interests, which initially leaned towards various forms of dance rather than acting. During her childhood, Melissa studied tap, ballet, and jazz, later transitioning into professional rollerskating, a skill similar to figure skating on ice.
By the age of 16, George had won several awards at various National Rollerskating Championships in Australia, and subsequently began modeling after dropping out of high school. Her modeling work led to a chance encounter with a casting agent, resulting in a role on the popular Australian soap opera Home and Away in 1988. Melissa relocated to Sydney, where she worked on the show for three years before deciding to pursue other projects.
In 1996, George left Australia and moved to Los Angeles in search of bigger roles. She secured various supporting parts in films such as Dark City in 1998 and Steven Soderbergh's crime thriller The Limey in 1999, before landing a key part in David Lynch's acclaimed neonoir mystery film Mulholland Drive in 2001. During her time in Bali in 1998, George met her future husband, Chilean filmmaker Claudio Dabed, whom she married in late 2000.
The early 2000s saw George playing bit parts in several American television shows, including Friends in 1994 and Monk in 2002, ultimately landing a recurring role on the hit Alias in 2001 alongside Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan. Throughout the later part of the decade, George had roles in various horror and thriller films, beginning with the 2005 version of The Amityville Horror, as well as the commercially successful thriller Derailed in 2005 alongside Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston, and Vincent Cassel.
George concluded the decade with several more horror films, including Turistas in 2006 and 30 Days of Night in 2007, as well as independent horror titles such as The Killing Gene in 2007, The Betrayed in 2008, and Triangle in 2009. She was also active in television work, landing a role on the popular medical drama Grey's Anatomy in 2005. Her greatest critical success would come with a role on In Treatment in 2008, playing the love interest of Gabriel Byrne, which would garner her a Golden Globe nomination in 2009.
Though a veteran of television in both Australia and the United States, Melissa George has achieved considerable success in her film career, which has spanned over a decade.
