The problems were to do with her parents. They'd split when Sarah was 8, Rosellen taking Sarah to live in an apartment on the Upper East Side. After the age of 13, Sarah would not speak to her father again, and was loath to even mention him in interviews, concentrating instead on her mother's selfless support. "Just because you donate sperm," she once said "does not make you a father. I would never give him the credit or acknowledge him as my father". Arthur's story was different. He claimed that, while he was struggling to meet the mortgage, Rosellen refused to get a job and help with the payments, instead devoting all her time to taking young Sarah to auditions. He got depressed, he said, and it was Rosellen who filed for divorce. He was adamant that he did not walk out on his family. But there will be no reconciliation now. Poor Arthur was found dead in a Manhattan apartment in October, 2001.

Many Americans work to put themselves through college. Sarah worked to put herself through primary school. She attended New York's exclusive Columbia and Preparatory School, but hated it. Her work made the other kids jealous and Sarah was over a barrel. If she talked about what she did, she was a snob. If she didn't, she was a snob. She claims to have been regularly bashed about. It can't have got any better when, in 1986, she appeared in The Widow Claire at The Circle On The Square. Her first co-star was Matthew Broderick, who suddenly shot to prominence as Ferris Bueller, being replaced by Eric Stoltz, himself about to explode with Some Kind Of Wonderful. Stoltz, Sarah has said, was her first crush.

Sarah's next appearances would be onscreen. There were a few small TV parts, then a bigger one in Crossbow, a series about William Tell that saw her filming in Europe. Coming so soon after Robin Of Sherwood, it wasn't a hit. Next came a brief part in Chevy Chase's deeply unfunny Funny Farm then, in High Stakes, she played the daughter of Sally Kirkland, herself playing a prostitute who's involved with the Mob while falling for a police officer. In between came Girl Talk, a shortlived TV show where Sarah was one of three young hostesses chatting about boys, products and, er, boys. One co-hostess was Soleil Moon Frye, better known as Punky Brewster.

Thankfully, Sarah's school-life was not entirely hellish. Switching to the Professional Children's School, she found herself with other gifted and ambitious kids. Among them were Tara Reid, who'd later star in Urban Legend and American Pie, and appear alongside Sarah in Cruel Intentions: there was Macauley Culkin, and Rebecca Gayheart, Sarah's co-star in Scream 2: and there was Jerry O'Connell, seen in Stand By Me and Jerry Maguire, and also Scream 2. For a while, in 1998, O'Connell and Sarah would date.

Here, Sarah did exceptionally well. Despite her extra-curricular activities, she maintained a Straight-A average, and became a competitive figure skater. She kept up a social life too, there being no lack of interest from the boys. "There was a playground right near my house", she once recalled "and the swings saw a lot of action from me".

Come the Nineties, there were yet more ads, most notably for Avon. And, on TV, she gradually moved towards her first breakthrough. After playing the young Jacqueline Bouvier in A Woman Named Jackie, she nabbed top slot in a new series, Swans Crossing. This was a kind of prototype teen show, involving the lives, loves and machinations of 12 rich kids in a small town. Sarah played Sydney Rutledge, the mayor's daughter and the Queen Bitch of the local high school (way down the bill was Mira Sorvino). The show lasted only one series, but Sarah's amazing maturity, and her ability to be both coquettish and thoroughly spiteful had been noted. She was approached to join the cast of All My Children.

Immediately before this, though, came a rare failure. Back onstage, Sarah had spent part of 1992 touring in Neil Simon's Jake's Women, playing the Old Glo