Debi Mazar Corcos (; born August 13, 1964) is an American actress and television personality. She began her career with supporting roles in Goodfellas (1990), Little Man Tate (1991), Singles (1992), and Batman Forever (1995), followed by lead roles on the legal drama series Civil Wars (1991–1993) and L.A. Law (1993–1994). She portrayed press agent Shauna Roberts on the HBO series Entourage. She starred as Maggie Amato on TV Land's Younger, and alongside her husband Gabriele Corcos in the Cooking Channel series Extra Virgin.
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Early life
Mazar was born in Queens, New York, the daughter of Nancy and Harry Mazar. Her father was born Harija Fogelmanis to a Jewish family in German-occupied Latvia. Mazar had no knowledge of her father's ancestry until her twenties, as he practiced Catholicism. Mazar's parents annulled their marriage shortly after she was born, and she spent her early life with her mother in the country in upstate New York. As a teenager, she relocated to Long Island, where she lived with her godparents.
Mazar left home at the age of 15, and by 16 she was working as a VIP doorperson at the Mudd Club in New York City. She then went to work at Danceteria. Mazar worked various odd jobs, including selling jewelry at Fiorucci with Linda Ramone and Joey Arias, and later as a dental assistant.
In the early 1980s, Mazar was part of the downtown club scene in New York City, socializing with artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf.
Career
While working at Danceteria, Mazar met Madonna, who hired Mazar to do her makeup for her first music video "Everybody" (1982). She appeared in six of Madonna's music videos: "Papa Don't Preach" (1986), "True Blue" (1986), "Justify My Love" (1990), "Deeper and Deeper" (1992), "Music" (2000) and "Danceteria" (2026). Mazar originated the hair and makeup for the 1988 play Speed-the-Plow.
As a teenager, Mazar was a b-girl in New York City. Her first television appearance was on the pilot for the hip-hop television dance show Graffiti Rock, in 1984. Her first major role was playing the legal secretary Denise Iannello on Civil Wars in the early 1990s. When that series was cancelled, her character was brought over as a recurring role during the 1993 and 1994 seasons of the TV drama L.A. Law.
Mazar has played a number of minor supporting roles in a variety of films, including Sandy, a friend of Henry Hill's mistress in Goodfellas (1990); The Doors (1991); a small role in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992); Bullets Over Broadway (1994); and as Spice (of Sugar and Spice, with Drew Barrymore as Sugar) in Batman Forever (1995).
Mazar played the villain Regina, a modern-day Cruella de Vil, in the family film Beethoven's 2nd (1993). She has appeared in independent films Inside Monkey Zetterland and Nowhere and her short-lived sitcom, Temporarily Yours. She appeared in the Space Monkeys' music video "Sugarcane".
Mazar appeared on a Friends episode in its eighth season ("The One Where Rachel Has a Baby, Part One"). Mazar played Doreen, the Evil Bitch, a crazed pregnant woman who shares a hospital room with Rachel. In the 1999 docudrama film The Insider she played character Lowell Bergman's assistant Debi. From 2000-02 she played Jackie on the television drama That's Life. She provided the voice of Maria Latore in the video games Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). Also in 2004, she made a cameo appearance in the film Collateral in which she played the passenger while arguing with her boyfriend (Bodhi Elfman) while the main protagonist, Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx), is driving them to their destination.
From 2004 to 2011, she had a supporting role on Entourage as press agent Shauna Roberts. She had a recurring role on the sitcom Living with Fran, as Merrill, the cousin of Fran Drescher's character. She did a two-episode stint on the television series Ugly Betty as fraudster Leah Stillman.
Personal life
Mazar dated artist Kenny Scharf and graffiti artist Kel 139 in the 1980s. She dated actor Paul Reubens for several years beginning in 1993. Reubens later credited Mazar with ending his depression resulting from his 1991 arrest. According to Mazar, their relationship was platonic yet inseparable: "we were best friends, and the truth of the matter is, basically, we had a love affair that was just cerebral."
She married Gabriele Corcos on March 16, 2002, in a ceremony officiated by Ellen Burstyn. They have two daughters. The family formerly lived in Los Angeles and moved to Brooklyn, New York in 2009. They divided their time between Brooklyn and a 15th-century home outside of Florence, Italy, that was given to them as a wedding present by Mazar's in-laws. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mazar and her family relocated to their Florence villa; she has Italian citizenship.
Mazar has a close friendship with pop star Madonna.
