Photography by Steve Meisel
Written by A. David Cooper
Interview by Markin Abras

The tableau of American pop culture has always been framed by our choice of icons. From film, to television, to music, to sports, and even in business, America likes its icons bold, flashy, and uncom-promisingly inspiring. More importantly, America embraces the maverick spirit. As the new millennium unfolds into the death or irony, the blogging of wit, and a new global citizen aesthetic, Sarah Jessica Parker has quietly emerged as the prototype feminine touchstone for the digital age. Finally, the caldron of cultural flux has conspired to conjoin Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe; merging intellect, humor and sex appeal to form what we now know as The New Woman aka Sarah Jessica Parker.

Born in Nelsonville, Ohio to Stephen and Barbra Forste on March 25, 1965, Sarah Jessica Parker began her career in the early 1980s as a child actor on the famed CBS television show Square Pegs playing the role of Patty Greene. It was clear early on that Parker was a unique voice in an often fickle world of artificial emotion and phoned in theatrical performances. Parker's acting had a vibrancy and resonance similar in texture and depth to such rare talents as Sissy Spacek and Meryl Streep. In short, audiences believed her.

Schooled at the Professional Children's School for two years in New York, and trained as a dancer at the American Ballet Theater, Parker's raw talent was burnished in an atmosphere of tradition and cosmopolitan professionalism. Parker's early fame was largely propagated via the television medium, but her true acting legs were sculpted on Broadway during her three years (1978-1980) starring in the hit musical Annie. Although her Broadway debut was in The Innocents in 1977, it was in Annie that New Yorkers first came to associate Parker with the grand old tradition of the theater. It was also this role that gave a failing Broadway a bright new face and further hope for the future of live stage acting in the face of stiff Hollywood and television competition. To this day, Parker maintains a strong connection to the theater via her two brothers, Timothy and Pippin Parker, who are founding members of the Naked Angels Theater Group.

"Welcome to the age of un-innocence. No one has breakfast at Tiffany's and no one has affairs to remember."Carrie Sex and the City [first episode]