Beautiful Oscar winning actress Mira Sorvino (1967-) was born on this day in Tenafly, New Jersey.

"I was never one of those people who wanted to be famous. All I really care about is the role," she said. The daughter of actor Paul Sorvino, she admits to the conflict of having a "serious, academic side that thinks I should be in the Peace Corps and this other side that wants to be Marilyn Monroe."

The studious Sorvino spent much of her childhood with her nose in a book. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1989 with a Chinese-Studies Degree after writing an ambitious thesis entitled Anti-Africanism in the People's Republic of China. Fluent in French and Mandarin Chinese, Sorvino was the writer and producer of a documentary about neo-Nazis in Russia.

She has said she has zero tolerance for all prejudices --  racial, ethnic, gender-based, or religious -- and believes stereotyping fosters narrow assumptions. "Each person has the same heart," she said, urging parents to encourage their kids to have friends with diverse backgrounds.

"Teach your children how to appreciate cultural differences," she urged.

Writer W. Clement Stone once said about the differences of people that, "There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative."

More Film-Making Quotations

The human spirit is a celebration of colors and differences!