Ione (pronounced Eye-on-ee) was born in 1971 in Hertfordshire, England. Her father was the famous Scottish singer, Donovan, and her mother, Enid Karl, was a Jewish American model. Ione was given the middle name, Skye, because she was conceived on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
She has one full brother, Donovan Leitch, who is a model and actor and is also known for marrying model Kirsty Hume. Skye also has two half-siblings from Donovan’s second marriage to Linda Lawrence.
When she was only 2 years old, Skye began her career as a model. Her mother raised Ione after her parents divorced. They had homes in California and Connecticut. Director Tim Hunter, who cast her in her first starring role, discovered Ione when she was working as a teenage model.
As a teenager Skye went to Hollywood High School and at sixteen, had a relationship with Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer of The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their relationship did not last, apparently due to Kiedis’s drug use.
Her first starring role was in River’s Edge in 1986 when she was only sixteen years old. The film co-starred Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper and the screenplay was based on the 1981 real life rape and murder of Marcy Conrad.
Skye's next film was Say Anything in 1989, the romantic teen drama written and directed by Cameron Crowe. John Cusack, Joan Cusack, and John Mahoney co-starred. That same year she starred in The Rachel Papers, which was a British film, co-starring James Spader and Dexter Fletcher. From there Ione participated on the television show Covington Cross in 1992. The show lasted only thirteen episodes and only 7 of them aired in the United States.
In 1991, Skye married her first husband, Adam Horovitz, who is a member of the Beastie Boys. Throughout their marriage, the couple appeared in several small roles together, including CityScrapes Los Angeles in 1994.
The couple divorced in 1999 when Skye left Horovitz for the Calvin Klein model Jenny Shimizu. Following that relationship, Skye married David Netto in 2001. The marriage ended in divorce in 2004 and the couple has one daughter, Kate Netto.
Although Ione has not had many starring roles since the late 1980s, Skye has continuously had many smaller parts throughout the 1990s, including Return to Babylon in 2004, co-starring Jennifer Tilly; The Good Doctor in 2000, co-starring James Coburn; and But I’m a Cheerleader in 1999, co-starring Natasha Lyonne and with an appearance by RuPaul. |
