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Biography

On November 6th, 1978, Taryn Manning was born in Falls Church, Virginia, a little town outside Washington, DC. Her father was a respected musician by night and a hotel manager by day. Soon after her birth, Taryn and her brother Kellin relocated to Tucson, Arizona, with their newly divorced mother. Growing up, Taryn would return to the East Coast at every possible moment to visit her father. She got to stay in four-star hotels and even worked in them, doing menial labor like folding laundry. When Taryn was 12, Kellin went to college and she moved to San Diego with her mother. It was in San Diego that Taryn discovered she had a knack for the performing arts. She was already a karate aficionado -- having been crowned state champion in her age group for two consecutive years -- and making the leap to dance wasn't much of a stretch. When she was 16, she became the national champion in dance.

There she attended Orange County High School of the Arts, and would go on to find career success in show business just a few years after graduation. Her ties with music began early, as she would collaborate on song compositions with her brother, a practice which would itself be incorporated into a film in which Manning appeared. In 1999, she was featured in an independent film called Speedway Junkies, which gave rise to later roles on television. Besides appearances in episodes of the TV series The Practice, NYPD Blue, and Boston Public, Manning had a starring role on the series Get Real in 1999.

Television stardom led to roles in major motion pictures, and she made her film debut with a part in Crazy/Beautiful starring Kirsten Dunst in 2001. A romantic teen drama dealing with racial issues, Crazy/Beautiful gave Manning a chance to make a statement as a hardcore partier named Maddy. In 2002, she played the role of Britney Spears' spunky and adventurous friend Mimi, in romantic road-trip story Crossroads, also starring Anson Mount and Zoe Saldana. Continuing her connection with pop music, she appeared in 8 Mile, a loosely biographical drama starring rap star Eminem. Rounding out her experience for the year within the realm of teen drama, she also appeared in Peter Kosminksy's White Oleander, the story of a teenager's struggle with a parent being sentenced to prison, based on a novel of the same name.