Christine Lahti was born April 4, 1950 in Birmingham, Michigan, to Elizabeth Margaret .
Children with her husband Thomas Schlamme : sons Wilson Lahti Schlamme and Joseph Schlamme; one daughter, Emma Lahti.
Christine was in the bathroom when she won her Golden Globe in 1998. Christine now makes light of this whenever presenting or receiving an award. In 1999, she purposely presented for the Golden Globes with a piece of toilet paper attached to her shoe.
Lahti is Finnish for bay or cove.
During her early years in New York, Christine was a waitress and worked in Central Park as a mime.
Her father was of Finnish descent and her mother was of Austro-Hungarian ancestry.
Protested alongside fellow actresses Sally Field & Jane Fonda , and playwright Eve Ensler urging the Mexican government to re-investigate the slayings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexico-Texas border. (February 2004)
Has never done a nude scene or posed nude in her 25+ years in show business.
Traveled to Scotland with the Ann Arbor Mime Troupe.
Good friends with Pamela Martin.
Worked as a waitress in the Original Improvisation during her New York years.
Graduated from Florida State University.
She studied drama at HB Studio in Greenwich Village in New York City.
Lahti designated "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" and "Long Days Journey into Night" as her favorite films in an AFI poll.
Studied with William Esper and Uta Hagen.
She was awarded the 1996 Drama Logue for Outstanding Performance for "Three Hotels" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
In an interview on NPR, she referred to her role as A.D.A. Paxton on Law & Order: SVU, as one of her most rewarding roles on television. She said that she loved it so much she hoped there was a chance they could write her back in as a ghost, or in flashbacks. (Paxton was killed off in Season 13.).
[on her college years in Ann Arbor] I was a hippie, but not a good one.
