Maria Bello – “Kathy Eldon”
Maria Bello – “Kathy Eldon”
Maria Bello is an internationally renowned actor, activist, author and producer. She has starred in and garnered awards for her performances in The Cooler, David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center and Coyote Ugly, along with more than 40 other feature films and television projects.
In April 2015, Bello released her first book Whatever… Love is Love. In her book, Bello expands on her news-making “Coming Out as Modern Family” column which ran in the New York Times.
She is the co-founder of We Advance, an NGO based in Haiti that advocates for women throughout the country to have full political, economic and social participation and is the Goodwill Ambassador for the Women of Haiti. She is a member of Artists for Peace and Justice, founded by director Paul Haggis.
Bello is a leader in the movement in Hollywood for equal pay and equal participation of women in front and behind the camera. As a member of the Systemic Change project through Women in Film and the Sundance Institute, she is helping to find solutions to gender parity issues in the industry.
She began her career as an activist at Villanova University, where she majored in Peace and Justice Education and worked at the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia. She was voted one of Variety magazine’s most powerful women in Hollywood for her activism with women in Darfur. She speaks around the country on Women’s rights Equality and Social Impact Investing at venues such as TedWomen, the UN and the State Department.
She starred in the David Kelly series Goliath for Amazon and the James Wan movie Lights Out, both in 2016.
