Here's What Happened To Rebecca De Mornay From Risky Business

Rebecca De Mornay has never stopped acting, but her star has dimmed as her career has progressed. The star enrolled in acting school on a whim and was in the business a couple of years before she landed her breakout role as Lana in "Risky Business." She was ecstatic to get the part, which felt familiar even though Lana was a sex worker. "I understood the part of Lana so well," De Mornay told The Wrap in 2023. "I've lived by myself as a young, young, 19-year-old in London, fending for myself. [I've] gone through a lot in my life in terms of upheaval and family stuff, and suddenly there was a part that just fit me like a glove, that I knew."

De Mornay refers to "Risky Business" as her "Cinderella moment," and she has expressed surprise that it created the degree of cultural impact that it did, given that it was her first film. She is as proud of it as ever, too. "It was elegant. When I first read the script, you could feel the soul of it, its intense wit and humour," De Mornay told The Independent.

The actor's second career-defining role was in "The Hand That Walks the Cradle," nine years after "Risky Business." She has appeared in a slew of other projects over the years, but many are not aware of what De Mornay has been up to given her lower profile. Here's what happened to "Risky Business" star Rebecca De Mornay.

Not only did Rebecca De Mornay launch her career with her breakout role in "Risky Business," but she also found herself a boyfriend on set. Exact timelines are iffy, but most reports point to De Mornay having been in a relationship with actor Harry Dean Stanton when she started an affair with co-star Tom Cruise. At the very least, it is a certainty that the two stars were an item when "Risky Business" was released in American theaters in early August 1983. "It was personally jarring, and thrilling and discombobulating to have become famous so quickly," De Mornay told The Wrap. "Tom and I were together when the movie came out and we had photographers jumping out of bushes, the pre-paparazzi days."

All told, De Mornay and Cruise dated for somewhere between two and three years. They split while De Mornay was filming "The Slugger's Wife," an ill-fated 1985 romance film, but few details are known beyond that. When doing press in July 2025, De Mornay made it clear that she had only positive feelings toward her former flame. "He is a brilliant, brilliant interpreter of what the zeitgeist is," she said of Cruise to Page Six. "I'm really, really proud of knowing him from when we were in the suburbs of Chicago [filming 'Risky Business'], and knowing what he wanted and where it is now. We started this together and look what he did with it."

Rebecca De Mornay had a rough go of things on her next project after "Risky Business," and not just because she broke up with Tom Cruise while filming. "The Slugger's Wife" coincided with other obstacles, such as a tornado that interrupted shooting. Perhaps the most damning of all was the film itself, which did not perform well. It grossed less than $2 million worldwide and earned De Mornay some of the worst reviews of her career. "The reviews I got for 'Risky Business' were phenomenal, and then the reviews I got for Slugger's Wife were really vicious," the star told The Independent decades later. "But none of it was actually true. I'm not as good as they were saying. And I'm not as horrible as they were saying, either. I'm an actress in a movie — I can't base my self-worth on how it all turns out."

Though she now has a healthy take on things, De Mornay did not immediately brush off the terrible reviews as a young starlet. Her mother died not long after, and all of these happenings led De Mornay to the United Kingdom, where she found refuge in a Zen Buddhist monastery. "I came to realize how much of it was out of my control," she said in that same article, published in 2024. "And I've had peace ever since, and worked in Hollywood for 40 years now. I think that's an incredible achievement."

Though she has had a number of notable romantic relationships, Rebecca De Mornay has married only once. The wedding was in 1986, after De Mornay's career had rebounded from the disaster that was "The Slugger's Wife." The star bounced back thanks to her performances in the acclaimed films "Runaway Train" and "The Trip to Bountiful," both released later in 1985. The latter film won an Oscar for its star, Geraldine Page, in addition to an adapted screenplay nomination, while the former was nominated for three Academy Awards. Though she herself received no awards recognition, De Mornay was a crucial element in both films' success (and on both movies' posters, to boot).

It was just as her professional life was picking up that De Mornay met Bruce Wagner, a producer, screenwriter, and novelist best known in Hollywood for writing the films "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" (with Wes Craven) and "Maps to the Stars," as well as his work on Tracey Ullman's television series "State of the Union." De Mornay and Wagner married in 1986 and divorced in 1990, but according to a Los Angeles Times article from 1993, the pair separated 10 months into the marriage. Neither De Mornay nor Wagner has spoken much in public about their short-lived marriage — although Wagner did once tell an interviewer that De Mornay provided "[z]ero inspiration" for Julianne Moore's character in "Maps to the Stars" or any of his other work (via Hobart Pulp).

Television movies were not exactly a movie star's dream gig in the 1980s and 1990s. There tended to be a stark separation between those who did film and those who did TV. Miniseries were a bit meatier, but they were still seen as lesser than in comparison to feature films — and rarely were they of the cinematic quality we see in today's limited series. It is interesting, then, that a budding movie star like Rebecca De Mornay had no reservations about mixing television with her film projects. And she did not just dip her toe into TV, either. Between 1986 and the early 2000s, TV movies and miniseries made up more than half of De Mornay's acting projects. She appeared in more than a dozen TV projects during this time period while still maintaining an active film career.

The star's first TV film was 1986's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name. De Mornay's other small-screen films include "By Dawn's Early Light," "Blind Side," and "Getting Out." None of these were especially memorable, but De Mornay's miniseries' were relatively high profile. Her lead role in "The Shining" — a three-episode, six-hour take on the Steven King classic — was particularly memorable. "Stephen said publicly that I was the first person he thought of for the part and his first choice all the way. I couldn't believe it — a man of his word," De Mornay said to The Morning Call.

If "Risky Business" was Rebecca De Mornay's breakthrough, then "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" was the solidification of her place in Hollywood. The two films were released nearly a decade apart, and though De Mornay was in plenty of other projects in the interim period, none can hold a candle to her career-defining role in "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle." What, you thought it was her 1987 turn as "Beauty" in a musical version of "Beauty in the Beast"? Not so much.

"The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is a demented, thrilling film about a pregnant widow who suffers a miscarriage after the death of her sex offender husband, then targets one of his victims and her family. The 1992 film grossed just over $88 million worldwide, and it earned De Mornay heaps of praise for her performance as the villain in the story. She also won best actress at the Cognac Festival du Film Policier, earned best actress nominations at the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards and the Saturn Awards, and collected an MTV Movie Award for best villain (she was also nominated for best female performance).

De Mornay so identified with the film that she had mixed feelings when a forthcoming remake was announced. "I was quite perturbed when I heard that ... sort of possessive, like, 'Wait a second, that's my role!'," she said to MovieWeb. "I hope they do it justice. I hope that, for their sake, it's good, because ours really is pretty damn good."

Similar to the uncertainties surrounding the exact start and end date of her relationships with Tom Cruise and Bruce Wagner, the very private Rebecca De Mornay has kept the exact timeline of her romance with Leonard Cohen under wraps. Reports suggest that De Mornay met Cohen in 1987. Given that De Mornay and Wagner split before their marriage hit the one-year mark, it is completely possible that De Mornay struck up a relationship with Cohen while still married.

A 1993 article in Entertainment Weekly — in promotion of Cohen's 1992 album, "The Future," which was dedicated to De Mornay and on which the actor co-produced a song — spoke of suspicions the couple got together five years prior. But since the couple only started being spotted in public regularly in 1992, it is also possible that a romance happened years later. The termination date of the relationship is also unknown, but obviously happened sometime before Cohen became an ordained monk in 1996.

Still, one thing is clear — Cohen was one of De Mornay's major loves and the closest that she came to walking down the aisle a second time. As with the rest of their relationship, it is not known when exactly they were engaged — only that they were. "Leonard Cohen was one of the greatest poets, but for me, he was also one of the most important people in my life, and losing him is like losing a limb," De Mornay told People upon Cohen's 2016 death.

Though she is primarily an actor, Rebecca De Mornay did not originally plan for a screen career. As a kid, she wanted to be a horseback rider and then a pop star. She began writing songs at age 13. Later, she performed in nightclubs in the United Kingdom and Germany, but De Mornay's music career never materialized beyond that (unless you count a handful of songs for her films' soundtracks). Neither did her career as a psychiatrist, her other early endeavor. The star lasted exactly one day in medical school before dropping out at the sight of her first corpse.

While wandering the streets of Los Angeles and thinking about her next move, De Mornay fatefully passed by the famed Lee Strasberg Institute, went inside, and set up an audition on a whim. "I still, to this day, don't know why — I guess just pure intuition — I said, 'I don't want to be an actress, I need to be an actress.' And that turned out to be true," De Mornay explained to The Wrap.

After arriving in Hollywood, De Mornay took to acting like a fish to water. That does not mean she hasn't dabbled in other things, however, in addition to her 60+ acting projects. For instance, De Mornay served as an executive producer on three of the films she made in the 1990s. She also directed a 1995 episode of the sci-fi anthology series "The Outer Limits."

Just when you thought we were done with the romance portion of our article, we bring you Patrick O'Neal, aka Rebecca De Mornay's baby daddy. O'Neal is a sportscaster by trade and an old-school nepo baby who comes from a full-on Hollywood dynasty. He is the son of Oscar-nominated actor Ryan O'Neal and his first wife, Primetime Emmy-winning actor Leigh Taylor-Young. His three half-siblings from his father's subsequent relationships are also actors. That includes his sister Tatum O'Neal, who in 1974 became the youngest-ever Oscar winner for acting (she remains the youngest today), and brother Redmond O'Neal, son of Farrah Fawcett.

But back to Patrick, who worked in film for a while before transitioning to sports reporting a few decades ago. Patrick has worked at FanDuel Sports Network West since 2000, where he reports on Southern California teams for Bally Sports (formerly Fox Sports). He has also done other gigs for Fox, including hosting some shows related to college football in 2012. De Mornay dated Patrick from 1995 to 2002, during which time the pair welcomed two children. Daughter Sophia De Mornay-O'Neal was born in November 1997, and her sister Veronica De Mornay-O'Neal was born three-and-a-half years later in March 2001.

According to a 2023 profile for The Wrap, De Mornay turned down many roles after deciding to slow down after becoming a mom. "I'm not quite sure how some of these very famous actresses with children, how they do it. Maybe they're good at multitasking? I'm not," she said.

Rebecca De Mornay has appeared in a handful of bigger films since her iconic turn in "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle," including "The Three Musketeers" in 1993. Nonetheless, the vast majority of her subsequent movies have been smaller vehicles. On TV, however, De Mornay has guest starred in many notable shows over the course of her long career. She had a five-episode arc on the juggernaut that is "ER" and a four-episode arc on "The Practice." She has also made appearances on everything from "Hawaii Five-0" to "Lucifer" to "NCIS." And don't forget "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," obviously, because who hasn't appeared in a guest role on a "Law & Order" of some sort?

De Mornay's presence on two shows stands out from the rest. One is "John From Cincinnati," a canceled-too-soon HBO show that lasted only 10 episodes and featured De Mornay as a series regular. The other is the exhilarating Netflix/Marvel series "Jessica Jones," on which De Mornay played the titular character's adoptive mother in a recurring capacity.

"Jessica Jones is a very interesting show. It's a bit too violent for my tastes — most things usually are — but the whole show seems to be a very valid comic book exploration, something that a lot of folks are into these days," she told the blog SciFiAndTvTalk. "My character of Dorothy in Jessica Jones turned out to be a really, really bad and abusive stage mother, and it's a part that I tried my best to play as honestly as I could."

Rebecca De Mornay may not talk much publicly about her romantic entanglements, but she certainly has no problem speaking out about controversial sociopolitical issues. In 2024, De Mornay vocalized her support for Israel numerous times across numerous channels. She partnered with the now-defunct Instagram account 2024 New Voices to produce a video statement siding with Israel, and took part in Israel Appreciation Day 2024. She also spoke on the topic at conferences and media interviews. "A lot of my closest relationships turned out to be with Jews," De Mornay said to the Jewish Journal when discussing the Hamas attack on Israel that started the war in Gaza. "I've felt very naturally attracted to them my entire life. ... When October 7 happened, it was as if it was happening to children in my backyard."

The title of the Jewish Journal article for which De Mornay was interviewed was "Thank You to Our Non-Jewish Allies" and featured a large photo of the star at the top of the page. They were not the only ones who appreciated De Mornay's position on Gaza. The "Risky Business" star also won the Warrior for Israel Award from Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO) California, awarded on the one-year anniversary of October 7, 2023.

Rebecca De Mornay's outspokenness does not stop at Israeli-Palestinian politics. The actor has also expressed a controversial take on accused sexual assaulter Kevin Spacey. To be fair, she is far from the only celebrity to have spoken out in support of the actor. Liam Neeson, Sharon Stone, and Stephen Fry all expressed their support in 2024 amid the release of a documentary with newer allegations against Spacey. De Mornay has certainly been one of Spacey's biggest defenders, though, and she was not afraid to say so publicly. "I think it's really unfortunate, this entire sort of ... politically correct handcuffing of everybody," she told The Independent. "That you're afraid on so many levels to ever speak your truth because you might get canceled."

In that same interview, De Mornay went on to explain that she chose to work with Spacey in the 2024 film "Peter Five Eight" because she did not think he was a "violent predator" like some others in Hollywood. "I love Kevin Spacey's acting, and this whole thing of, you know, his trials and the accusations ... I wasn't there. But I really don't think he is [guilty]. I think he's unjustly accused of a lot of stuff. I'm not sure why he was jumped on to the extent that he was," she said. "I think the timing was unfortunate with, you know, the Harvey Weinstein thing. But the bottom line is I chose to work with him because I love him as an actor, and I would work with him again."