Laura Mackenzie Phillips (born
November 10 1959, in
Alexandria, Virginia) is an
American actress and
singer, known primarily for her roles in
movies, soap operas and
television.
The naturally brunette-headed Phillips skyrocketed her career in the
1970s and
1980s, where she's best known as
Bonnie Franklin’s rebellious yet boy-crazed daughter,
Julie Cooper Horvath, on
One Day at a Time (a role she played from 1975 to 1980 and from 1981 to 1983), and in the late
1990s and
2000s as
Cara DeLizia’s budding rock singer and single mother,
Molly Phillips, on
So Weird.
She is the daughter of
The Mamas and the Papas’ lead singer,
John Phillips, and Susan Adams (aka
Suzy January), a
socialite. She was also the stepdaughter of group member
Michelle Phillips, and is half-sister to
Bijou Phillips and
Chynna Phillips (all three have different mothers).
She was named in honor of her father’s friend, songwriting collaborator and performing partner,
Scott Mckenzie.
As a child, the biggest names in pop culture visited her house such as
Tommy James from the band
The Shondells, Neil Diamond, John Sebastian and
Barry McGuire.
Mackenzie began to use drugs at an early age. She began to smoke
marijuana and use
LSD at the age of twelve, and was taught how to shoot up
heroin by her father at the age of eighteen. Shortly after turning 18, she was aggressively seduced by
Mick Jagger, visiting in the Phillips home, who told her, “I’ve been waiting to do this since you were ten years old.”
Her first major acting role was the part of “Carol” in
American Graffiti (
1973). In
1975, she started playing “boy-crazy" Julie Cooper, the elder of two daughters, on the
TV sitcom One Day at a Time. This was her most famous role.
During her run on
One Day at a Time, she became addicted to
cocaine. This, coupled with an
alcohol problem, caused her to be late for tapings, or sometimes miss them entirely. This got a lot of coverage in the press, and the executive producer of the show fired her in 1980 when she refused to get help. She returned to the show from a rehabilitation center in
1981 but eventually became addicted again. She was fired for good in
1983 and did not return to the show before it was canceled; she did, however, appear with her castmates on the reunion special that first aired on CBS on Tuesday, February 22, 2005.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, she attempted and eventually succeeded in getting over her drug problem with the help of her father, who was also a recovering addict. She was asked to play a substance abuse counselor on
Beverly Hills 90210 in 1994 (when
Luke Perry's character was suffering from drug addiction) and on
Guiding Light in 1996 (when she tried to help
Cynthia Watros’ character, Annie Dutton, through her drug problem).
In 1999, she is a budding singer and has starred with
Cara DeLizia on the
Disney Channel series
So Weird as rock star Molly Phillips, performing numerous songs in her own right. She also guest-starred as Annie Spadero's sister, a singer, on
Caroline in the City.
