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Summer Glau extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Summer Glau
Summer Glau at a 2005 Serenity Flanvention.
Born	Summer Lyn Glau July 24, 1981 (1981-07-24) (age 28) San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2002–present

Summer Lyn Glau (born July 24, 1981) is an American actress and dancer, known for playing River Tam in the science fiction series Firefly and follow-up movie Serenity, and for playing Cameron in the series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.3 Personal life 2 Filmography 2.1 Awards 3 References 4 External links

Biography

Early life

Glau was born in San Antonio, Texas, where she grew up with her two younger sisters. She is of Scots-Irish and German descent.¹ Her mother is a schoolteacher and her father a general contractor.²

Glau received a scholarship to a ballet company and was home-schooled from grades 3 to 12 to accommodate her ballet training.³ Glau was classically trained as a ballet dancer⁴ and also studied tango and flamenco. After a serious ankle injury ended her dancing career,⁴ Glau later moved to Los Angeles in 2002 to pursue a more active acting career.

Career

Glau's first television credit was a guest role as a ballerina on the 2002 episode "Waiting in the Wings" of the television series Angel. There she caught the eye of director Joss Whedon, who later cast her in his critically acclaimed but ultimately short-lived TV series Firefly as River Tam, a role she reprised for the show's feature film sequel, Serenity. Glau previously auditioned for the role as a Pink Ranger on one of the Power Rangers series before meeting Joss Whedon.⁵

Glau appeared on the episode "Love Conquers Al" of the TV series Cold Case. She had a small role in the film Sleepover, in which she played a high school senior named Shelly. She also appeared in the CSI episode "What's Eating Gilbert Grissom?", and the second season of The Unit; portraying Crystal Burns, the girlfriend of Jeremy Erhart. In 2006, Glau played Tess Doerner, a paranoid schizophrenic returnee in the second season premiere of The 4400 (episode "Wake-Up Call"), and became an essential recurring character from season 3 onwards. She also starred in the science fiction film Mammoth. Glau was cast in the ABC Family TV movie The Initiation of Sarah.

In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a series that debuted January 13, 2008, Glau plays the role of Cameron Phillips, a Terminator infiltration unit sent back to protect John Connor and Sarah Connor from Skynet.⁶ The seventh episode of the series, "The Demon Hand", included several scenes in which Glau (in character as Cameron) dances ballet. Glau also guest starred as herself in the 2009 episode "The Terminator Decoupling" from the second season of the CBS situation comedy The Big Bang Theory.

On August 26, 2009, it was confirmed after much speculation that Glau would be joining the cast of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse for at least two episodes in the early part of the show's second season. She portrayed Bennett, the programmer for a rival Dollhouse.

On March 12, 2010, it was announced that she would be joining the cast of The Cape by NBC, in a leading role.⁷

Personal life

Summer Glau has been involved in a number of charities, such as B.C. Women's Hospital & Health Centre⁸ where she autographed several teddy bears to be sold on eBay to help raise money for the Hospital. Glau is an animal lover and has shown support to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles,⁹ where she hand-painted a decorative pet bowl that was later sold on eBay to raise funds. She was also a vegetarian from 1995 to 2005.¹⁰ Glau has trained in multiple forms of martial arts, including kung fu and kickboxing.^10111213

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002	Angel	Prima Ballerina	Television episode "Waiting in the Wings"
	Firefly	River Tam	Television series, star, 14 episodes
2003
	Cold Case	Paige Pratt	Television episode "Love Conquers Al"
2004	Sleepover	Ticket Girl	Feature film
	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Mandy Cooper	Television episode "What's Eating Gilbert Grissom?"
2005	Serenity	River Tam	Feature film, star
2006	Mammoth	Jack	Television film
	The Initiation of Sarah	Lindsey Goodwin	Television film
2006–2007	The Unit	Crystal Burns	Television episodes: "Extreme Rendition", "Force Majeure", "Report by Exception", "The Broom Cupboard", "Johnny B. Good", "The Water is Wide", "Outsiders"
	The 4400	Tess Doerner	Television episodes: "Wake Up Call", "The Ballad of Kevin and Tess", "Terrible Swift Sword", "Fifty-Fifty", "The Wrath of Graham", "Daddy's Little Girl", "Ghost in the Machine", "Tiny Machines"
2008	Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles	Cameron Phillips / Allison Young	Television series, starring Tied with Elizabeth Mitchell in winning the Saturn Award for Best Television Supporting Actress for portrayal of "Cameron".
2009
	The Big Bang Theory	Herself	Television series, guest starring. Episode "The Terminator Decoupling"
	Dollhouse	Bennett Halverson	Television series: recurring role14

Awards

Glau was voted Best Actress of 2005 by readers of SFX magazine and received a 2005 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Serenity.¹⁵ She was also runner up for Best Actress/Movie in the SyFy Genre Awards for 2006.¹⁶

In 2008, she received the Best Supporting Television Actress award at the 34th Saturn Awards for her performance as Cameron Phillips in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,¹⁷ and was nominated for the Spike TV Scream Awards in the category Best Actress in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show for the same role.¹⁸

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Summer Glau

• Summer Glau at the Internet Movie Database
• Summer Glau at TV.com

Persondata
NAME	Glau, Summer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Actress
DATE OF BIRTH	July 24, 1981
PLACE OF BIRTH	San Antonio, Texas
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH