Mayim Hoya Bialik is best known for her lead role as Blossom Russo in the early-1990s NBC television sitcom Blossom. Bialik was born in Southern California to first generation Jewish American parents who were documentary film makers and teachers. She hails from Polish, Hungarian, and Russian ancestry, and, yes, she is related to the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik. She played the young Bette Midler in "Beaches" and also had guest roles on some of television's most beloved shows of the 1980s and 1990s, such as MacGuyver, Webster, and The Facts of Life. She also appeared in Woody Allen's "Don't Drink the Water" in 1994. She has more recently appeared in HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and Saving Grace and is signing the deal on a cameo in a Pinchas Perry filom to be completed this fall. Bialik earned a BS from UCLA in 2000 in Neuroscience and Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCLA in 2007. Her thesis in psychoneuroendocrinology examined Hypothalamic Secretions and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome. Bialik is married and has two gentle mellow blue-eyed sons, born in 2005 and 2008. She lives in Southern California and enjoys cooking vegan food, practicing attachment parenting and natural family living, and studying Judaism with her Partner in Torah extraordinaire. Bialik also enjoys writing for a variety of websites, and has been published recently on the Jewish Wedding Network (on the topic of the Mikveh) and Tablet Magazine (on the topic of modesty in Hollywood). Bialik is the spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network, a national non-profit organization promoting education and support for parents interested in living holistically.
