Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This section needs additional citations for verification. Hannah made her film debut at age 18 in 1978 with an appearance in Brian De Palma's horror film The Fury. Parker School in Chicago before enrolling at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she studied ballet and acting. Hannah later attended the progressive Francis W. Instead, her mother decided to relocate with Hannah temporarily to Jamaica, in hopes that the change in environment would help her daughter. She was subsequently diagnosed with autism, and medical professionals urged her parents to have her institutionalized and medicated. As a young child, Hannah was emotionally isolated and struggled in school. She has said that she was very shy growing up. Hannah became interested in movies at a young age, partly due to insomnia. Hannah grew up with siblings Don and Page Hannah and her maternal half-sister, Tanya Wexler, in Long Grove, Illinois. Her parents divorced, and her mother subsequently married businessman Jerrold Wexler, brother of cinematographer Haskell Wexler. Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Susan Jeanne Metzger, a producer and former schoolteacher, and Donald Christian Hannah, a tugboat and barge company owner.
