Lori Singer Footloose

Lori Singer (born November 6, 1957, Corpus Christi, Texas) played Ariel Moore in Footloose (1984).

A musical prodigy before she was an actress

Singer was the daughter of conductor Jacques Singer, who led the Oregon Symphony from 1962 to 1972. She made her debut as a cellist with the Oregon Symphony at thirteen, and was accepted to the Juilliard School, where she became the institution's youngest graduate. The cello has remained a constant — she has performed with Yo-Yo Ma in Atom Egoyan's Inspired by Bach (1997) and played the classical-musician daughter of a jazz singer in Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993). (wikipedia)

Fame led directly to Footloose

NBC cast Singer in the Fame television series in 1982 as Julie Miller, a teenage cellist — the part was written for her actual training. She left after the second season for film. Footloose was her feature-film debut.

"The second we said hello and shook hands, it was almost electric." — Lori Singer, Yahoo Entertainment (2024)

She was talking about Bacon. She did her own stunts on the chicken-truck scene, where Ariel climbs out the window of a moving car and rides the gap between two pickup trucks. Singer recalled the day on set as legitimately frightening — there was a real moment where the trucks nearly clipped a third vehicle, and the take that ended up in the film captures her real reaction.

After Footloose, an art-and-music life

Year	Film	Notes
1984	Footloose	Feature debut as Ariel
1985	The Falcon and the Snowman	John Schlesinger
1986	Trouble in Mind	Alan Rudolph
1986	Summer Heat
1989	Warlock	Steve Miner
1993	Short Cuts	Robert Altman ensemble
1995	VR.5	Fox television series
1997	Inspired by Bach	Played with Yo-Yo Ma
2025	Wonder Drug	Directorial debut, in production

Singer largely stepped back from Hollywood in the late 1990s in favor of music, art, and humanitarian work. In her late sixties, she has been directing her first feature, Wonder Drug, an investigation of the drug DES. (wikipedia, imdb)