As an actress, Debi Mazar is well known for playing tough, street-smart, fast-talking characters like a no-nonsense publicist in “Entourage” and an outspoken mistress in “Goodfellas.” The Queens native has had a lot of success with this niche, but becoming a Hollywood actress wasn’t always the career move she envisioned when she first started working.

As Mazar tells “Oprah: Where Are They Now?”, she began working at a young age as a makeup artist and, despite her youth, ended up generating quite the roster of big-name clients.

“When I was young, I’d say 16, I had a very lucrative, believe it or not, makeup career,” Mazar says. “I was doing really cool people… Miss [Diana] Ross, Raquel Welch, Run DMC. I had met my friend Madonna in a club; I did her makeup when she was first starting.”

This friendship with Madonna is what helped Mazar find her calling in front of the camera.

“I would do her makeup and she was like, ‘Debi, want to be in the video?'” Mazar says. “I’d be like, ‘Yeah, sure!'”

Mazar ended up appearing in five of Madonna’s music videos and soon realized how much she enjoyed performing. “I had that performing bug, which I didn’t even realize,” she says. “But I looked good on camera [and] I was game for it.”

Her role in “Goodfellas” followed and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, Mazar can be seen on TVLand’s “Younger” and also stars in the Cooking Channel’s “Extra Virgin” alongside her husband, Italian musician and foodie Gabriele Corcos. She opens up about her marriage, parenting and past on Saturday’s “Oprah: Where Are They Now?”, airing at 10 p.m. ET on OWN.

For more from “Oprah: Where Are They Now?”, visit wherearetheynow.buzz.



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