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Jessica Alba
Jessica Marie Alba (born
April 28,
1981) is a
American
actress whose TV and film credits include
Dark Angel,
Honey,
Sin City,
Fantastic Four,
Into the Blue,
Idle
Hands and 2007's
Good Luck Chuck. Alba rose to prominence following the
television series
Dark Angel, then expanding her résumé to film, predominantly within
the confines of action and comedy. Alba appears frequently on the "Hot 100"
section of
Maxim, and was voted
AskMen.com's No. 1 on their list of "99 Most Desirable Women" in 2006, as
well as "Sexiest Woman in the World" in
FHM in 2007.
Biography
Early life and family
Alba was born in
Pomona, California, the daughter of Catherine (née
Jensen), who is
Danish American on her father's side and
French American on her mother's side, and Mark Alba, who is
Mexican American (though both of his parents were born in
California).[1]
Alba's parents married while in their teenage years.[2][3][4]
Her maternal grandfather was a
Marine
NCO for 30 years, serving in the
Pacific
during
WWII,
and later as Asst. Drum Major for the
United States Marine Band. Alba was raised in an
Air Force family, along with her brother,
Joshua[5]
and her grandparents, until she was seventeen years old. Her father's Air
Force career took the family to
Biloxi,
Mississippi and
Del Rio, Texas,
before they settled back in California.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies; she
suffered
collapsed lungs twice, had
pneumonia
4-5 times a year, a ruptured
appendix, and a cyst on her
tonsils. This
isolated her from other children at school because, as she claims, she was in
the hospital so often that no one knew her well enough to befriend her.[6]
She has also acknowledged suffering from
obsessive-compulsive disorder during childhood.[7][8]
Her health improved, however, when her family moved to California. She
graduated from high school at age 16,[9]
and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Career
Early career
Alba had expressed interest in acting since the age of five. She took her
first acting
class at age twelve, and an acting agent signed her nine months later.[10]
Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature
Camp
Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role
turned into a two-month job when the actress in one of the prominent roles
dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national TV commercials for
Nintendo
and
J.C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several
independent films. She branched out into TV in 1994 with a recurring role
as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the
Nickelodeon comedy series
The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in
the first two seasons of the TV series
Flipper. Under the tutelage of her
lifeguard
mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a
PADI-certified
scuba
diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in
Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the
Steven Bochco crime-drama
Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of
Beverly Hills 90210 and as Layla in an episode of The Love Boat:
The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the
Randy
Quaid comedy feature
P.U.N.K.S..
After graduating from high school, Alba studied acting with
William H. Macy and his wife,
Felicity Huffman, at the
Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director,
David
Mamet.
Alba rose to greater prominence in
Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school
clique in the
Drew Barrymore romantic comedy
Never Been Kissed, and as the female lead in the 1999 comedy-horror
film
Idle Hands, opposite
Devon
Sawa.
Her big break came when writer/director
James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of
the genetically-engineered super-soldier,
Max
Guevara, on the
FOX
sci-fi TV series
Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran
for two seasons until 2002, earning her critical acclaim as well as a
Golden-Globe nomination.
During preparation for Dark Angel, in which Alba trained for three
hours every day, the actress began to starve herself and became obsessed with
exercise,
going on to say, "A lot of girls have
eating disorders and I did too. I got obsessed with it." Alba recalls
coming to a realization that she had a problem when she dropped to just
100 lbs and cites her natural introduction to
puberty and
her development of womanly curves as two things that caused her "concern"
regarding her
aesthetics. Alba, who also suffered from
obsessive compulsive disorder and
panic
attacks, says she has been cooking for herself since the age of twelve, in
fear she will end up as fat as her family members.[11]
Film career
Since then her most notable roles have included an aspiring
dancer-choreographer
in
Honey,
exotic dancer
Nancy Callahan in
Sin City and as the classic
Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the
Invisible Woman in the
Fantastic Four. Jessica went on to host the
2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies
King Kong,
Mission Impossible 3, and
The Da Vinci Code. Alba's pending projects include
The Eye (a remake of the
Hong Kong
original) and Sisters, alongside
Eliska
Amor and
Paz Vega.[12][13]
Public image
In 2006, readers of
Askmen.com voted Alba No. 1 on 99 Most Desirable Women,[14]
while in 2007,
Maxim Magazine placed Alba on the number 2 spot of their "Top 100",
after
Lindsay Lohan.[15]
Both GQ and
In Style
had Alba on their June covers,[16][17]
and in May, after eight million votes,
FHM (UK and USA
editions) named Alba the winner as "2007’s Sexiest Woman in the World".[18]
Alba has received successful public reception in popular culture. In 2001
Alba received a
Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress for her role in Dark Angel.
In 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, Alba appeared on Maxim's Hot 100 list. In
2006, Alba received an
MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance" for Sin City. In 2007,
Alba received the
Spike TV Guys' Choice Award for "Hottest Jessica".[19]
On the cover of the
March
2006 issue,
Playboy
magazine named Alba among its 25 Sexiest Celebrities, and the Sex Star of the
Year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of
her image (from a promotional shot for
Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the
appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However,
she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from
Playboy owner
Hugh
Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has
supported.[20]
Alba fears being typecast as a
sex
kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her.[21]
"Somehow, I don't think this is happening to
Natalie Portman," laments Alba. In the interview, Alba says she wants to
be taken seriously as an actress but believes she needs to do movies that she
would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that
eventually she hopes to be more selective in her film projects.
Charity
Alba's charity work includes participation with Clothes Off Our Back,
Habitat for Humanity,
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD,
Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children Villages, Soles4Souls, and
Step up.[22]
Personal life
Alba was raised
Catholic
and still considers herself "spiritual".[2]
In her adolescence, she became a
born-again
Christian,[23]
but left the church after four years because she felt she was being judged for
her appearance, explaining:
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex
and homosexuality, and the lack of strong female role models in the Bible,
explaining:
As the daughter of religiously conservative parents, Alba, whose
grandparents did not allow her to wear a bathing suit around the house,
maintains a no-nudity clause in her contract, though she has claimed she had
been open to the possibility of appearing nude in Sin City. She
remarked of a GQ
shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny
panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny
panties' ".[24]
Alba was given the option to appear nude by the film's directors,
Frank Miller and
Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer saying, "I don't do nudity. I
just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some
things. But I have too much anxiety".[3]
Relationships
While filming
Dark
Angel, Alba began a four year romance with fellow castmate
Michael Weatherly, which caused controversy due to their 12 year age gap.[25]
He proposed to her on her 20th birthday.[26]
They eventually broke up after a four-year relationship. In July 2007, Jessica
spoke out about the break up. "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a
virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents
weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow The
Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to be believe. I'm
completely different."[27]
Alba had at one time said she envisioned a much older man as her ideal
partner, making references to
Morgan Freeman,
Sean
Connery,
Robert Redford, and
Michael Caine. "I have this thing for older men. They've been around and
know so much."[28]
Regarding children, Alba said, "I'm really girly when it comes to kids. I've
been surrounded by kids my whole life because I'm the oldest of 15 cousins —
I've been changing diapers since I was six. I want to have a couple, for
sure".[29]
Alba is engaged to Cash Warren (son of actor
Michael Warren), whom she met while making Fantastic Four in 2004.[30][31]
They are expecting their first child in early spring or summer of 2008.[32][33]