Who is Rachel True? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Also Known As: Rachel India True

Age: 57 Years, 57 Year Old Females

Family:

father: Richard True

Born Country: United States

Jewish Actors African American Actress

Height: 5'3" (160 cm), 5'3" Females

U.S. State: New Yorkers

More Facts

education: New York University

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Childhood & Early Life

Rachel India True was born on November 15, 1966, in New York City. Her father, Richard True, was of German Jewish descent. Her mother is of African–American and Native American ancestry. She is the second of the three children of her parents.

She started nurturing dreams of becoming an actor early in life, influenced by her stepmother, renowned stage actor Verona Barnes, who had also raised her since she was 4 years old.

Growing up in a Jewish household in New York's East Village had a considerable impact on the roles Rachel wanted to pursue later. A multicultural New York City had made True “blissfully unaware of her appearance,” until her parents moved upstate when she was a teenager. She once stated, “There was so much racism there, kids refused to sit or stand next to me because I was brown skinned. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, they think I’m not beautiful’. I’d never had to think about that before.”

She was fascinated with the occult since her childhood, often immersing herself in esoteric books in her father’s library. Rachel was particularly drawn to two books: ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ By Nietzsche and ‘Man and His Symbols’ by Carl Jung.

She learned to use spiritual practices to help her go through tough times and keep herself grounded. She acquired her first deck of tarot cards as a teenager and later became a professional tarot reader and practitioner.

True attended ‘New York University.’ Her younger sister, Noel, the “whiter” of the two, is also a former actor and a one-time documentary film producer, who was active during the 2000s.

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Career

She got her acting break in 1991, with a few episodes in the long-running ‘NBC’ sitcom ‘The Cosby Show.’ She played a friend to ‘Theo,’ portrayed by Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

She moved to Los Angeles in 1993, beginning her full-fledged acting career with recurring TV roles in ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ (1993) and ‘HBO's ‘Dream On’ (1994–1995). Her first notable film job was the rap parody ‘CB4’ (1993), alongside Chris Rock.

True’s next starring role came with ‘Embrace of the Vampire’ (1995), opposite Alyssa Milano, followed by what turned out to be the biggest film of her career, reinforcing her niche in the occult genre, the widely appreciated teenage witch film ‘The Craft’ (1996), alongside Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, and Neve Campbell.

Immediately after, in 1997, she appeared in the series ‘Boston Common.’ Her critically appreciated portrayal of ‘Mel’ in Gregg Araki's indie ‘Nowhere,’ the third installment of his ‘Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy,’ also did wonders for her.

True returned to commercial films with the stoner flick ‘Half Baked’ in 1998, opposite comic Dave Chappelle, followed by more recurring spots on TV, with ‘The Drew Carey Show’ (1997–1998) and ‘Once and Again’ (1999–2000).

She did several inconsequential films after that, the only ones worth any mention being Greg Harrison's ‘Groove’ (2000) and the Taye Diggs-starrer ‘New Best Friend’ (2002). She later earned the role of ‘Mona Thorne’ in the ‘UPN’ sitcom ‘Half & Half,’ co-starring Essence Atkins. The show ran until 2006.

In 2009, her “good friend,” two-time ‘Primetime Emmy’-winning actor, writer, producer, and comic Kathy Griffin, was responsible for her appearing in several episodes of Griffin's reality show, ‘Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.’

After ‘Half & Half,’ True appeared in a few forgettable Black ethnocentric and multi-racial films such as ‘The Perfect Holiday’ (2007) and ‘Divas’ (2009), followed by a decade of sparse TV work and minor jobs in shorts and telefilms. She has also done a few voice roles.

True has been doing some low-budget independent films of late, such as ‘Limelight’ (2017), ‘Good Grief’ (2017), and ‘The Manor’ (2018). She was last seen in a 2019 episode of the ‘Golden Globe’-nominated comedy–drama ‘Better Things.’

In 2019, she was featured in the ‘Shudder’ original documentary ‘Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror,’ an adaptation of Dr. Robin R Means Coleman's seminal book of the same title.

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Personal & Family Life

True often receives compliments for looking younger than her age. Some have claimed it is because she has never married or had children. She has never been in a public relationship and continues to be single. In 2009, she was granted a restraining order against a stalker.

She and her ‘The Craft’ co-star Neve Campbell, whom she met for the first time on the sets of the film, are great friends. The two hit it off instantly and continue to speak to each other frequently.

Her father passed away during the filming of the first season of her last major acting assignment, ‘Half & Half.’

In a 2017 profile done by ‘LA Weekly,’ True revealed that she had trained herself as a tarot-card reader, as acting jobs had started drying up, and that she worked at the ‘House of Intuition’ in Echo Park, Los Angeles, reading cards for customers over the phone or in person.

The actor has a website called ‘sometruethings.com,’ which doubles up as a personal blog where she writes about health, diet, wellness, and aging gracefully. It is also a business platform for her tarot-card reading services. She is also working on a book and a tarot set named ‘True Heart Intuitive Tarot,’ which is supposed to be part “tarot how-to with a Jungian slant” and part “Hollywood memoir.”

According to a media report published on June 17, 2018, ‘Citibank’ filed a lawsuit against the actor for her inability or unwillingness to pay credit card dues amounting to more than $30,000. According to the complaint, True had not made any bill payments since late 2015.

True set up a ‘Patreon’ account titled ‘The True Heart Society for Wellness & Intuitive Advancement’ in 2019. She does daily tarot-card pulls and explanations and makes videos about ageing naturally. She even plans to eventually conduct live tarot webinars.

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