In March , she alleged that she was sexually abused from the age of five by Richard Hayes Stone, an uncle by marriage who was later divorced by Hatcher's aunt. She said her parents were unaware of the abuse. Stone died of colon cancer on August 19, , after serving six years of his sentence. Hatcher studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater. It mainly involved dancing and singing as part of the Mermaids show routine, but she had short comedic lines in some episodes, and in one episode was part of one of three storylines opposite a male guest star.
In , she played the sensible, intelligent year-old daughter of Patty Duke 's lead character in the short-lived Fox comedy Karen's Song , and had a guest-star role in an episode of Night Court.
That year she also made her motion picture debut with a minor role as a young opportunistic actress in The Big Picture , starring Kevin Bacon. She then played Sylvester Stallone 's younger sister, a dancer, in the big-budget police action-comedy Tango and Cash , also starring Kurt Russell ; it was a critical and box office disappointment. She co-starred as year-old lawyer in a mostly physical relationship with a widowed businessman twice her age, played by Robert Loggia.
The series had a brief run on CBS that summer but was not renewed. She also acted in the television crime movie Dead in the Water in which she plays Bryan Brown 's lawyer's young, attractive temptress secretary, and in the low-budget erotic thriller The Cool Surface not released until , wherein she plays a young actress who has an ill-fated romance with an enigmatic, unsettled screenwriter.
Hatcher made a much-discussed guest appearance on a episode of Seinfeld , in which her character, Sidra, breaks up with Jerry because she believes Jerry sent his friend Elaine into a sauna to find out if Sidra's breasts are natural or enhanced by surgery. The episode concludes with Sidra saying to Jerry, "By the way, they're real, and they're spectacular" as she leaves his apartment.
