Jessica Alba Biography
Summary
"Jessica Marie Alba" (born April 28, 1981 in Pomona, California) is an American actress of Mexican American descent, perhaps best known for her roles in "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 resume to film, predominantly within the confines of action and comedy. Alba appears frequently on Maxim's Hot 100 and was voted AskMen.com's No. 1 on their list of "99 Most Desirable Women" in 2006, voted FHM's "Sexiest Woman in the World" in 2007.
Biography
Early life and family
Alba was born in Pomona, California, to Mark Alba, who is Mexican American (though both of his parents were born in California), and Catherine (née Jensen), who has French and Danish ancestry; the two married while in their teenage years. 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 (an actor who appeared with her in the season one finale of "Dark Angel"), 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 served to isolate 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.
She has also acknowledged suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder during childhood. Her health improved, however, when her family moved to California.
Education
Alba graduated high school at age 16. Theatrically, Alba 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.
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.
Film career
Since then her most notable roles have been as 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.
Awards
2000: Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television - "Dark Angel"
2001: TV Guide Awards for "Breakout Star of the Year" - "Dark Angel"
Public image
Reception
In 2006, readers of Askmen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women", while in 2007, "Maxim Magazine" placed Alba on the number 2 spot of their "Top 100", after Lindsay Lohan. Both GQ and In Style magazines had Alba on their June covers, and in May, after eight million votes, FHM (UK and USA editions) named Alba the winner as "2007's Sexiest Woman in the World".
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 Female".
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.
Alba fears being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. '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.
Personal life
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 100lbs 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.
Alba has revealed that she envisions 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.'
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'.
She has a tattoo of a daisy with a ladybug on the back of her neck, the Sanskrit symbol for the lotus flower, "padma", on her wrist, and a lower back tattoo of a bow.
Alba was raised Catholic and still considers herself 'spiritual'. In her adolescence, she became a born-again Christian, but left the church
As the daughter of 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' '.
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'.
Of her mixed heritage, and perceptions of her ethnicity, Alba has said:
External links
(Jessica Alba) at AskMen.com
(Jessica Alba) at TV.com
(AskMen.com - #1 Most Desirable Women of 2006)
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Jessica Alba.
