Life and career

Born in New York City to an African American mother and a Jewish father, Beyer began her acting career with a role on the children's program Sesame Street when she was just four years old. She studied acting and psychobiology at City University of New York's School for the Arts. After landing a bit part in Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984), Byer moved to Los Angeles, where she became a regular on the ABC prime-time soap opera Dynasty in 1986, playing Jackie Deveraux, the daughter of Diahann Carroll's character Dominique Deveraux. She went on to earn ShoWest's Newcomer of the Year Award for her leading role in the feature Rooftops (1989).

Since then, Byer has acted in features such as Disorderlies (1987), Weekend at Bernie's II (1993), Eddie (1996) starring Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man (1998) starring Kenneth Branagh and Robert Downey Jr., and John Q, (2002) starring Denzel Washington.

But it was in 1997 that she put her writing skills to use, making her screenwriting debut with B*A*P*S, starring Halle Berry. Unhappy with how her script had been changed during the course of filming, the following year she decided to direct her next screenplay, Let's Talk About Sex (1998), also playing a starring role. Byer made a trailer and took it to the Sundance Film Festival, where she handed it out to film executives. The film was quickly picked up by Fine Line Features. She next wrote and directed Love Don't Co$t a Thing (2003) for Warner Brothers, based on the hit 1987 movie Can't Buy Me Love.

Byer appeared in music videos for Prince's songs "Sexy MF" and Biz Markie's 1991 minor hit single "What Comes Around Goes Around".

Byer is currently earning her doctoral degree in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is also the author the Amazon Best-Seller self-help book entitled "Ex-Free: The Freedom Action Plan".

[ Source: Wikipedia ]