Gabrielle Carteris

Gabrielle Carteris

General Information:

Birthplace:

Scottsdale, AZ

Birth date:

January 2, 1961

Played:

Andrea Zuckerman

 Gabrielle Carteris is an American actress who played Andrea Zuckerman in Beverly Hills, 90210.

Biography

As the oldest member of the"teens" on the blockbuster FOX series Beverly_Hills_90210, Carteris -- then 29 -- "played young" (read: a character around half her age) to portray high-school newspaper editor Andrea Zuckerman.

Gabrielle and her twin brother, James, began life in Phoenix, AZ, in 1961 -- the only children of restaurant proprietor Ernest Carteris and realtor Marlene Carteris. Six months after the children were born, their parents split, and Marlene moved to San Francisco, Gabrielle and James in tow, where she opened a boutique for children's apparel; her parents moved into the household to

Gabrielle as Andrea

help raise the children. Gabrielle attended high school in Marin County, CA, in the late '70s -- a self-admitted loner, introvert, and bibliophile who practiced ballet on the side and toured Europe as a mime at age 16. Carteris attended Sarah Lawrence College in the early '80s (graduating in 1983), then held down roles on the daytime soap opera Another World (as a troubled teen) and in ABC's Afterschool Specials. In 1990 -- at the exact same time that she met her husband-to-be, stockbroker Charles Isaacs -- Carteris auditioned for the Zuckerman role, under the aegis of mega-producer Aaron Spelling -- and everything fell into place. Within the context of the series, model student Andrea graduated from high school, had multiple affairs, got pregnant outside of wedlock, married Jesse Vasquez Mark D. Espinoza and gave birth to a premature, underweight baby -- and then, when Carteris announced her departure from the show in 1995, moved with Jesse to Connecticut, where she enrolled in a pre-med program and he accepted a teaching post at Yale. In actuality, Carteris intended to parlay her 90210 success into other areas, beginning with a daytime talk show, Gabrielle (1995). Unfortunately, that program failed to catch fire and folded after approximately one year.

However she has seen greater success in other ventures. Since exiting the series that put her on the map, Carteris has worked regularly as an actor and voice over artist, amassing a considerable amount of post-90210 credits. She's gone on to become a mainstay on the made-for-television movie circuit, starring in nearly a dozen such films. Her first, a suspense yarn opposite Baywatch's David Charvet, and Erica Kane herself, Susan Lucci, was released in 1995 while she still a contract player on 90210. She also became a regular presence on network television, guest starring in such television mainstays as Touched by an Angel, King of the Hill, NYPD Blue, JAG, Batman, Criminal Minds, and The Event. She was apart of the premier cast of VH1's celebrity reality show, The Surreal Life. She also returned to guest star in Beverly Hills 90210 as Andrea Zuckerman in seasons 6, 8, and 10.

Carteris' major motion picture work includes a very small role in Jacknife, starring Al Pacino, Charles S. Dutton, and Ed Harris, and a slightly larger role opposite John Lithgow in 1992's Raising Cain.

Today Carteris continues to work regularly as an actor, but in a bit of life-imitating-art twist, she has also taken up Labor leadership and advocacy. She was elected president of AFTRA LA in 2011. Under the recent SAG (Screen Actors' Guild) and AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) merger, Carteris became the national vice president of SAG-AFTRA, Los Angeles in 2012. She also serves as a vice president of the California Labor Federation.

She and husband Charles Issacs have two children, Kelsey Rose and Mollie Elizabeth.