Lori Petty
American actress
Lori Petty (born October 14, 1963) is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She made her big-screen debut appearing in the 1990 comedy film Cadillac Man and later starred in films Point Break (1991), A League of Their Own (1992), Free Willy (1993), In the Army Now (1994), The Glass Shield (1994) and played the title role in Tank Girl (1995). She created and starred in the short-lived Fox sitcom Lush Life in 1996 and acted in a number of independent movies in her later career. She also voiced the original character of Livewire in Superman: The Animated Series.
In 2008, Petty wrote and directed independent drama film The Poker House based on her early life during the 1970s. In 2014, she joined the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black as Lolly Whitehill as a guest star in the second season, and a recurring character in the third, fourth and seventh seasons.
Early life
Petty, the eldest of three children, was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the daughter of a Pentecostal minister. She had a difficult upbringing after her mother left her abusive father and became addicted to drugs and became a sex worker, which left the young Petty responsible for her younger sisters. Petty graduated from North High School in Sioux City, Iowa in 1981. She worked in Omaha, Nebraska as a graphic designer for several years before pursuing acting.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Lori Petty” is american actress. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Lori, Petty and American, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american actress” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q261639. VIAF identifies the subject as 39576792. The Library of Congress control number is no2001073538. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1990, 1991 and 1992.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Lori Petty” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.