CLAUDIA SHEAR (Writer) might just be the most famous former brothel receptionist/hardware store clerk/waitress in the world. Single-minded and confident, the playwright/actress worked a whopping 64 jobs before she shot to fame with her one-woman play Blown Sideways Through Life (1993), a comedy that chronicled the many careers she supported herself with until her acting took off. Sideways later transferred for a sold-out commercial engagement at the Cherry Lane Theatre and Los Angeles' Coronet Theatre. Shear received a special OBIE award and a Drama Desk Award nomination for writing and starring in the play. The hilarious, insightful account of an everyday working girl was adapted for the screen in 1995 and shown on PBS' American Playhouse. The outspoken native New Yorker followed up her success by writing and starring in Dirty Blonde (2000), receiving five Tony nominations, including Best Play and Actress in a Play nods for Shear. In between working on her two wildly popular shows, Shear appeared in several films, playing bit parts in It Could Happen to You (1994) and Living Out Loud (1998), and even making a guest appearance as the "fake Monica" on NBC's Friends (1994). Born in Brooklyn to a firefighter and a cosmetics executive, Shear did not have an idyllic childhood. Weight problems and a persisting feeling that she was an outsider and a misfit kept Shear isolated from other children, forcing her to seek comfort in books and food. Her parents were always working when she and her sister were growing up, and adding to the issues of alienation and abandonment, the girls had to deal with their parents' divorce when they were very young. The difficulties in her life forced Shear to grow up much quicker than the average child. Shear went to work when she was only 12 years old, lying about her age so she could get a job as a hardware stork clerk. It was around this time that she also fell in love with the theater, having taken herself there when she was just 10 or 11 years old. Despite her enthusiasm, she found few directors willing to cast a big girl such as herself in any serious roles. Unable to break into the business--despite the occasional bit part in an Off-Off-Broadway show--the fast-talking writer went to work as a volunteer at the Public Theater, where she was encouraged to try her hand at writing instead.