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Eszter Balint

This dark-haired, pixie-faced actress originally from Budapest is best-known for her breakthrough role as the culturally dislocated waif in Jim Jarmusch's off-beat "Stranger Than Paradise" (1984) and for her avant-garde theater work. The daughter of stage director Stefan Balint, she spent much of her youth as a member of The Squat Theater first formed in Budapest in 1969. Squat's members--including Balint and her father--fled Hungary and spent two year in Paris and Rotterdam before heading to America and set up shop in New York. The company became well-known in bohemian circles for such productions as "Pig, Child, Fire!" (1977), "Andy Warhol's Last Love" (1978) and "Mr. Dead and Mrs. Free" (1981), both of which were filmed, and their last show, "Full Moon Killer" (1991).