The Stunning Transformation Of Elizabeth Berkley

Elizabeth Berkley has been the face behind at least two of film and television's most indelible characters, but due to industry pressure, she hasn't necessarily had the kind of career that has kept her in the headlines. In that way, she's had to fight for her place in the pop culture landscape — much like the characters she's played. Looking back at her "Saved by the Bell" character, Jessie Spano, decades later, Berkley mused to Vogue World, "She was fearless, and I think in our culture, many young women are taught to apologize for speaking up and using their voices. My mother and the women who were around me growing up were forces; they instilled that confidence in me, so I was always proud to have played a character like Jessie."

Then there was Nomi Malone. Playing the main character in Paul Verhoeven's sleazy masterpiece "Showgirls" had an effect not just on Berkley's career but her personal life, too. She has had to transform in the wake of an intense backlash, and in 2024, she told a live audience that the journey was a rewarding one. "Just like Nomi, she won 'her' in the end. ... As did I, walking through on this path from my dream coming true, the criticism and ridicule and humiliation, to finding out what I'm made of."

This is a look at the amazing transformation of Elizabeth Berkley, from child star to icon and beyond.

Elizabeth Berkley was raised in Michigan and born to parents who noticed early that their daughter had not only a particular talent for performing but a drive to succeed. "They recognized that their child had a dream, and they figured out how to help support that because I wanted to do the work," Berkley explained in an appearance on "The View." She added, "It wasn't recreational. It was my heart and soul, really." They helped her sign up for dance classes and acting lessons, and soon she was going out on auditions in New York and Los Angeles. 

Berkley was also raised Jewish, a fact that she says often surprises people. Speaking with Jewish Journal, Berkley revealed that she sometimes sings the beginning of her Haftorah just to prove to people that she's Jewish. She reflected, "Not only am I grateful for my family, but there's a real love I have for growing up Jewish, and where I grew up, because there's a foundation that it's given me in these crazy kind of worlds that I might come across." As Berkley's career in entertainment began to take off, she would indeed come across some such worlds.

Though Elizabeth Berkley had begun acting as a child, her family had only just moved to Los Angeles when she was cast in a role that would change her life. She was even still attending public school at the time, but that wouldn't last, because Berkley had been saved by "Saved by the Bell."

Reflecting on that time in her life, she told Jewish Women International, "This has always been my passion, and I was lucky to have parents who took my dream seriously. I could not have done it without them. It's not like we had any Hollywood connections. I was doing 17 dance lessons a week, going to school, working."

Berkley initially auditioned to play Kelly Kapowski on the iconic school-set sitcom. Instead, producers created an entirely new part for her: Jessie Spano. Jessie was a good girl, but in one of the show's most well-known episodes, she developed a devastating addiction to caffeine pills. "I think a lot of kids had a lot of big feelings around it when it came out, and even though we laugh about it now and there are the memes, it was pretty raw," Berkley recalled in an interview with Capsule 98. "For its time, it was extremely deep and showed heightened emotion in a way that you hadn't seen with these characters."

By the time "Saved by the Bell" ended, Elizabeth Berkley was ready for a challenge. Along came a part in what Berkley thought would be the film to launch her career. Paul Verhoeven, director of hits like "RoboCop" and "Total Recall," was developing a film called "Showgirls," about a spunky dancer named Nomi Malone who takes Las Vegas by storm. "I wasn't looking for shock value. That wasn't my intention," Berkley later told People. "When I first read about the role, it was a visceral moment. I thought, 'That's mine.'"

She won the role and threw herself into filming, turning in a fearless performance unlike many others on screen. At a "Showgirls" screening in 2024, the actor recalled, "Right before the film came out, my beloved mommy asked my agent at the time ... 'Do you think that she could win an Oscar for this role?'" She noted that Sharon Stone's career had just been launched into the stratosphere by racy roles like in Verhoeven's "Basic Instinct." "Every girl in Hollywood had fought for this role," Berkley said. (It's true; even Jennifer Lopez auditioned.) "It was not a strange thing to ask."

Unfortunately, that's not what happened. The film received an NC-17 rating, and it wound up being a legendary box-office bomb. Furthermore, Berkley's acting was roundly mocked in the press, as was the movie's wild, flailing dancing. Berkley's life would never be the same.

In the aftermath of "Showgirls," Elizabeth Berkley found herself a joke in Hollywood, her performance turning her into a late-night punchline. "There was so much cruelty around it," she told People. "I was bullied. And I didn't understand why I was being blamed. The job as an actor is to fulfill the vision of the director." Berkley continued, saying, "No one associated with the film spoke up on my behalf to protect me. I was left out in the cold."

Director Paul Verhoeven later told the New York Daily News that he's the one who should've taken the blame. "I asked Elizabeth to do all that — to be abrupt and to act in that way," he confessed, "but people have been attacking her about for that ever since."

In an interview with Jewish Women International, Berkley recalled learning an important lesson from that time in her life. "My work has always been my salvation," she said. "Like in ballet we say, 'Go back to the barre.' I just went back to the barre. I went back to acting class, back to my dance classes, back to the things I love. I wasn't going to let the naysayers stop me." Berkley's dedication paid off, and within several years after "Showgirls," the actor racked up credits in films like "The First Wives Club" and Woody Allen's "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion."

In 2000, several years removed from the drama of "Showgirls," Elizabeth Berkley did something she'd done many times before — she went to a dance class. "I've been a dancer my whole life, but I agreed to go to the class with a friend for moral support," she told InStyle. There she met Greg Lauren, nephew of famed designer Ralph Lauren. Three years later, the two got married in an elaborate ceremony, dressed by — who else? — Ralph Lauren.

The couple married in Mexico, turning their wedding into a multi-day event that featured choreographed dance numbers to "You're The One That I Want" from "Grease," among others. There was an outdoor screening of "Casablanca," yoga classes, and salsa lessons. The couple suggested a "festive black tie" dress code for their guests, which led to some interesting sartorial choices. "Some people wore tuxedos with colored flip flops. It was very cool," Greg Lauren revealed.

Berkley told InStyle that their unique celebration was exactly the point. "Our joy came from making it personal," she said. "By the end it truly felt like we were all family."

After receiving critical scorn from "Showgirls," Elizabeth Berkley decided to put in the work. Part of that career reinvention meant taking her talent to the stage and proving herself in theater, and to that end, she acted in several well-reviewed plays on Broadway. In fact, theater critic for The New York Times Charles Isherwood wrote a lengthy apology to Berkley in the paper after seeing her on stage, as he'd previously relied on a tendency to associate her with "Showgirls" when she'd already proven she was more than that film. "To identify Ms. Berkley with her early-career debacle continually is to signal, however subtly, that it represents the totality of her achievement, and no, it's not fair," Isherwood wrote.

Berkley performed in a play called "Sly Fox" opposite Richard Dreyfuss and followed it up with a role in "Hurlyburly," which had a cast that included Parker Posey. The two became close while acting in the play, and Berkley later told Jewish Women's International that this experience was especially refreshing. "That play was amazing because on a personal and a creative level, it was a test," she said. "I had to learn it in three days — I was brought in to replace someone — and I got to learn a lot about myself. It was one of those moments when you find out what you're made of. It was a leap of faith where I had to trust my years of training and just jump."

Though critics questioned her dancing ability after "Showgirls," Elizabeth Berkley's lifelong training in dance led to a new gig in the late 2000s. In 2008, she hosted a reality show on Bravo called "Step It Up And Dance," a competition show that gave dancers a shot at a $100,000 prize. 

Each week, Berkley hosted a judging panel that assessed competitors on a new genre of dance. "One week it's Latin. One week it's burlesque. One week it's Broadway. So it's really exciting the kind of the journey the audience gets to go on with the dancers," Berkley told Gossip Girls. "You get invested in the dancers because you get to know them personally as well."

To promote the show, Berkley appeared on "The View," and she sang the praises of the contestants on her show. "It's about the artistry," she said. "You know, there's so many reality shows out there where people are just becoming famous for really nothing, not having talent, and so to see people who are at the top of their game, doing what they love ... There's nothing greater." Unfortunately, audiences didn't seem to agree. In a crowded reality show market, "Step It Up And Dance" wasn't particularly successful, and it only lasted one season.

In the late 2000s, "Saved by the Bell" entered syndication, meaning Elizabeth Berkley was once again getting recognition for her first big role. "I had a whole new generation of girls approaching me for autographs and pictures, but it didn't feel right to just send them off with a signature," she told Jewish Women International. "I wanted to be of service." Her husband suggested an advice column, and "Ask Elizabeth" was born.

On a website geared toward teens and in a parent-focused column for Oprah.com, Berkley drew upon her own experiences to offer a supportive ear to girls struggling through adolescence. In an introductory column, Berkley described speaking with tens of thousands of girls around the country, giving them an environment to ask anything, knowing she won't judge. "My mission up until now has been to provide girls with an oasis in the midst of the maelstrom of adolescent pressures and confusion so they can know they are not alone, and to enable them to find and hold true to their inner light," she wrote.

In 2011, Berkley released a book of her best advice, also called "Ask Elizabeth." She designed the book in collaboration with teen girls, explaining to Jewish Women International, "It was amazing to me how girls rallied to be a part of it. This was not about their own glory; it was 100% to show the goodness in the world. They wanted to help girls around the world that they would never meet."

2012 turned out to be a major year for Elizabeth Berkley. She told People that she was due to have a baby that summer, and she was glad that she at least had some time to get ready — unlike some of her acting roles. "As an actress sometimes you get cast in a job and you have to just go," she joked. "I like how this has been its own journey [and] there is time for what is the role of a lifetime."

While she was pregnant, Berkley focused on remaining fit, dabbling in Pilates and yoga. "The thing that's been great is that I've kept up my workouts. I'm going to keep it up while I can," she said. "I'm a dancer so it's part of my life anyway."

Just days before her 40th birthday, Berkley welcomed a son. The actor and her husband announced Sky Cole's birth in People, telling the magazine, "The moment we both saw him it was love at first sight. We are over the moon and grateful to start this amazing adventure together as a family."

While her dancing in "Showgirls" was widely mocked, Elizabeth Berkley has proven that she is, in fact, a trained dancer. In 2013, Berkley competed on "Dancing with the Stars." She told Variety that it was an emotional experience, especially considering how she'd been treated after "Showgirls." Berkley reflected, "Because it was so criticized, it was humiliating — doing anything that was connected to the film was not fun. So I think being able to find a relationship to my dancing, which something I loved, has been healing."

"Showgirls" wasn't the only past role that "Dancing with the Stars" let Berkley reclaim. Berkley was paired with Val Chmerkovskiy, one of the Internet's favorite "DWTS" pros, and they designed a jive around "Saved by the Bell." They danced to "I'm So Excited" by The Pointer Sisters — the same song Jessie Spano sang at the height of her addiction to caffeine pills. "From the beginning, fans were asking us to dance to that song," Berkley told Variety. She even acted a bit, a "DWTS" first. "For the first time," she said, "the producers were willing to open up the mics."

Berkley was eventually kicked off in a shocking pre-finale elimination, despite having perfect scores from the judges. She told "Today" that it was a surprise. "I felt a little ... sucker punched," she reflected. It wasn't all bad, though. She added, "The love affair I have with dance has returned."

Elizabeth Berkley has spent much of her career branching out, but she also had a chance to revisit and reclaim one of her early characters.

Beginning in 2021, Berkley reprised her role as Jessie Spano on Peacock's reboot of "Saved by the Bell," now working at Bayside High and happily married to her former flame, A.C. Slater (played by Mario Lopez). Berkley told Capsule 98 that the world has changed significantly since her initial run on the show, and she was particularly touched by the way the newer series recognized that Jessie was a trailblazing feminist character. "There's a great scene where Slater comes to Jessie and apologizes, [saying] that she was out there alone fighting hard for things she believed in," Berkley previewed. "I almost cried reading the scene — he says, 'Now there's a whole new generation of Jessies.'" Speaking with Collider, she reflected, "We wouldn't have wanted to do something that was the same because we have evolved. We were children when we did the show, truly."

Berkley was also a producer on the show, and her involvement was instrumental in putting the reboot together. Berkley was particularly interested in being a part of the casting process for the show's new generation of Bayside High students. "I was at every session and watched every link. I was with people for their chemistry reads," she told Collider. "That was really exciting."

In the decades since the release of "Showgirls," Elizabeth Berkley has never managed to escape interviewers who want to ask her about the film. Thankfully, the movie's reputation has trended more positive in later years. In fact, it's fair to say that the movie has been widely reappraised since its debut, audiences having come to recognize it as a cult classic that offers many more pleasures than critics were initially willing to allow. Of this phenomenon, Berkley told Capsule 98, "I wasn't looking for vindication, but I'm grateful. It is amazing to me how it has been embraced, and how much fun people have with it."

In 2024, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum in Los Angeles hosted a screening of the film, with Berkley in attendance to introduce it. In front of a cheering, adoring crowd, Berkley got choked up while talking about how the movie has been reconsidered over the years, and especially how her queer fans have always supported her. "[The film has been] not misunderstood, but truly embraced," she said. "And I'm so grateful that the film has found its way into your hearts, and especially the LGBTQ community, who stood by the film." Berkley's voice cracked with emotion, and she waited out a long standing ovation before continuing. "You always believed, as did I," she said. "And for that, I'm eternally grateful."