The actress, who built a promising career in the 1980s and 1990s, once shared the screen with stars like Brad Pitt and Christian Slater. She also popped up in several popular TV shows of the era, including 21 Jump Street and Melrose Place. But by the late ’90s, her acting roles began to slow, and after one final straight-to-video film, she retired from the entertainment industry in 2002.
During the recent demonstration, she held a sign reading “Operation Epic Failure,” a pointed jab referencing the government’s “Operation Epic Fury” name tied to the Iran War. Dressed casually, she wore a loose collared shirt with cutoff trousers and kept her look minimal, shielding her face with sunglasses and a baseball cap. She was later seen relaxing at an outdoor table at a nearby Mexican restaurant.
The actress in question is Cheryl Pollak, who starred opposite Pitt in his first leading-man film, the 1988 US-Yugoslav production The Dark Side of the Sun. Pitt played a man with a severe skin condition that forced him to avoid sunlight entirely, while Pollak portrayed a woman intrigued by him when he’s hidden behind leather biker gear — but less interested once she sees his face.
Pollak had also appeared alongside Pitt earlier in a 1987 episode of 21 Jump Street. Born in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1967, she launched her Hollywood career at 19 and made her film debut in the 1987 horror-comedy My Best Friend Is a Vampire, which co-starred Robert Sean Leonard.
Her credits went on to include the 1990 teen drama Pump Up the Volume, led by Christian Slater, along with guest roles in series such as Alien Nation, Quantum Leap, Hotel Malibu, and JAG. She married director Richard Murphy in 1999 after working together on the comedy Betty, where she played a runaway actress hiding out in Palm Springs.
Pollak’s final acting role came in the 2002 direct-to-video thriller Time of Fear, in which she played an FBI agent investigating a small-town murder. She later moved behind the camera, with her last known project being the 2012 animated short Jasper: A Fabulous Fourth.
