Although she has also proven herself as a dramatic actress, "Meg Ryan" used her blonde hair, blue eyes, and effervescent personality to greatest effect in romantic comedies of the 1980s and '90s. Initially getting her start on television, Ryan became a star with her titular role in the smash 1989 comedy "When Harry Met Sally", earning both fame and permanent notoriety for her ability to fake an orgasm for "Billy Crystal" during a scene in a New York restaurant. The daughter of a casting agent, Ryan was born Margaret Mary Emily Anna Hyra in Fairfield, Connecticut on November 19, 1961. Raised in New York, she went on to study journalism at New York University. In need of money to pay for her night classes, Ryan turned to acting to raise some extra cash. With her mother's help, she landed a role on a short-lived television series, and then made her film debut in "Rich and Famous". The 1981 film -- Read More

A woman whose combination of talent, tenacity, and beauty has made her one of Hollywood's busiest actors, "Halle Berry" has enjoyed a level of success that has come from years of hard work and her share of career pitfalls. "Berry"'s interest in show business came courtesy of her participation in a number of beauty pageants throughout her teens, including the 1986 Miss U.S.A. Pageant. A native of Cleveland, OH, where she was born to an African-American father and white mother on August 14, 1968, "Berry" was raised by her mother, a psychiatric nurse, following her parents' divorce. At the age of 17, she appeared in the spotlight for the first time as the winner of the Miss Teen All-American Pageant, and subsequently became a model. "Berry" won her first professional acting gig on the TV series Living Dolls, and then appeared on Knots Landing before winning her first big-screen role in "Spike Lee"'s... Read More

Giving new meaning to the term America's Sweetheart, "Sandra Bullock" won over scores of filmgoers and critics with her wholesome, exuberant portrayals of ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances. Since her breakthrough role as "Speed"'s unwitting heroine, Bullock has enjoyed the type of popularity that was in the past reserved for actresses along the lines of "Mary Pickford" or "Shirley Temple". Born in Washington, D.C., on July 26, 1964, Bullock was the elder daughter of a vocal coach dad and an opera singer mom. Touring through Europe with her mother, Bullock was given her first taste of show business while still a child. Back in the States, she attended high school in Virginia and was a popular cheerleader, whose classmates dubbed her the person Most Likely to Brighten Your Day. After a stint at East Carolina University, Bullock took her sunny nature to New York, where she began... Read More

A precociously talented youngster, "Helen Hunt" was drawing paychecks as a television actress from the age of ten. Before she was 17, she had appeared as a regular on two series, "Swiss Family Robinson" (1975) and The Fitzpatricks (1977). Hunt proved she was more than just a workaday child actor with her starring performance in the fact-based 1981 TV movie "The Miracle of Kathy Miller", in which she played a high school athlete who overcame severe mental and physical damage brought on by a highway accident. While she had been appearing in films as early as "Rollercoaster" in 1977, Hunt was never groomed as a star player, and it is possible that her resemblance to another child actress, "Jodie Foster", held her back from more important roles. After taking on her first adult role in the 1982 sitcom "It Takes Two", Hunt's film assignments improved, with sizable roles in "Girls Just Want to Have... Read More

Actress, tabloid fodder, provocative Vanity Fair cover piece: the husky-voiced brunette "Demi Moore" is nothing if not an unforgettable roadside attraction on the pop culture highway. Rising to prominence with a string of successful films during the '80s and early '90s, Moore became known for both her onscreen and offscreen ability to draw attention for everything from her grin-and-bare-it roles in films like "Striptease" to her well-publicized marriage to (and divorce from "Bruce Willis". Born Demetria Guynes in Roswell, NM, on November 11, 1962, Moore led a troubled childhood. To call it tumultuous would be something of an understatement: along with her mother, half-brother and stepfather, she moved no less than 30 times before her adolescence, thanks to her stepfather's job as a newspaper ad salesman. The problems that went along with such an itinerant lifestyle were compounded by the... Read More

Born during the late '60s, Georgia native Julia Roberts was raised in a fervently pro-theater environment. Her parents regularly hosted acting and writing workshops, and both of the Roberts children (Julia and her brother Eric) showed an interest in the performing arts at an early age. Ironically enough, Eric was the first to break into film; in 1978, one year after their father died of lung cancer at 47, Eric Roberts starred in director Frank Pierson's psychological drama King of the Gypsies. Though her older brother would go on to have a solid acting career, it was, of course, Julia Roberts who earned a spot among Hollywood's elite. After making her film debut in Blood Red -- which wouldn't be released until 1989, despite having been completed in 1986 -- and appearing in several late '80s television features, Roberts got her first real break in the 1988 made-for-cable drama Satisfaction. That... Read More

The roller coaster career of actress and singer "Vanessa L. Williams" provides an excellent example of fortitude, resilience, and real talent winning out over adversity. In 1983, the dark-skinned, raven-haired, green-eyed Williams made history when she was the first black woman to be chosen Miss America. For a time she was the country's darling as she toured about, attending to her royal duties, but when Penthouse magazine published graphic nude photographs that she had posed for years before, Williams lost her crown, two million dollars in product endorsements, and the lead in a Broadway show; suddenly, America's sweetheart found herself the subject of moral outrage, criticisms, and sniggering jokes. But though her career and reputation were in shambles, Williams kept her dignity and faith, and continued on, first making her name as a successful R&B singer (one of her songs went gold, "Save the Best... Read More

The youngest of four children born to Evelyn "Brandy" Foster, "Jodie Foster" entered the world on November 19, 1962, under the name Alicia, but earned her "proper" name when her siblings insisted upon Jodie. A stage-mother supreme, Brandy Foster dragged her kids from one audition to another, securing work for son Buddy in the role of "Ken Berry"'s son on the popular sitcom Mayberry RFD. It was on Mayberry that Foster, already a professional thanks to her stint as the Coppertone girl (the little kid whose swimsuit was being pulled down by a dog on the ads for the suntan lotion), made her TV debut in a succession of minor roles. Buddy would become disenchanted with acting, but Jodie stayed at it, taking a mature, businesslike approach to the disciplines of line memorization and following directions that belied her years. "Janet Waldo", a voice actress who worked on the 1970s cartoon series "The Addams... Read More

The older sister of actress "Page Hannah" and niece of cinematographer "Haskell Wexler", athletic, blonde leading lady "Daryl Hannah" trained for the ballet before switching to acting at the Goodman Theatre. Taking the stage would prove quite a daunting task for the girl who suffered from agoraphobia and was once such a wallflower that she was diagnosed as borderline autistic, and though it would take "Hannah" a few years to become truly comfortable in front of an audience, she eventually overcame her fear to stunning results. In addition to ballet "Hannah" also exuded a certain grace on the high school soccer field. Her interest in film was sparked by a severe case of insomnia early in life, and young "Hannah" would spend hours on end soaking in film into the wee hours of the night. Before completing her theatrical training under the guidance of "Stella Adler", the young hopeful appeared in the Brian... Read More

Widely considered to be the first Mexican actress to become a Hollywood movie star since "Dolores Del Rio", "Salma Hayek" is known for bringing a fiery presence and striking, dark-eyed beauty to the screen. A soap star in her native Mexico, Hayek risked her entire career to come to L.A., where she struggled to be taken seriously. Her discovery by director "Robert Rodriguez", who cast her in his 1995 film "Desperado", gave Hayek her breakthrough, and she subsequently gained a reputation as one of Hollywood's sexiest and busiest actresses. The daughter of a Spanish mother and Lebanese father, Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico, on September 2, 1966. Raised in a devoutly Catholic family, she was sent to a Louisiana boarding school at the age of 12. After getting into trouble for terrorizing the nuns, Hayek returned to Mexico, but she was eventually sent to Houston, Texas, to live with... Read More

Blonde and buoyant actress "Heather Locklear" had the distinction of co-starring simultaneously in two weekly series within a year of her 1981 TV debut. Locklear played Steven Carrington's long-suffering wife Sammy Jo on "Dynasty", then went down the block to essay the role of ever-imperiled lady cop Stacy Sheridan on "T.J. Hooker". Since that time, Locklear has made several efforts to establish herself as a comedienne, ranging from a forgettable sitcom to her wiselipped heroine in Return of the Swamp Thing (1991). Far better at inducing feminine envy than laughs, Locklear has most recently been seen as elegant villainess Amanda Woodward, on the Fox Network series Melrose Place, a show she is credited as saving from cancellation with her sexy but catty performance. When not participating in series television, Locklear has functioned as spokesperson for the Health and Tennis Corporation of America.... Read More

The daughter of legendary sex symbol "Jayne Mansfield" and former Mr. Universe "Mickey Hargitay", "Mariska Hargitay" appears born to play the type of larger-than-life roles that would make her a Hollywood idol. Instead, from her breakthrough performance as a vulnerable single mother on ER to her starring turn as a somber detective on Law & Order: SVU, the talented actress has built her career by portraying real-life characters and keeping out of the spotlight. Raised in Los Angeles, Hargitay was a child of divorce before she celebrated her first birthday. In 1967, her mother died tragically when her car collided with a truck outside of New Orleans. Hargitay, then only three years old, was asleep in the backseat of the vehicle, but escaped uninjured. Days later, she moved in with her father and stepmother, Ellen Siano, a flight attendant. Hargitay participated in scores of activities throughout grade... Read More

Like other "Saturday Night Live" alumni, "Julia Louis-Dreyfus" made the move to feature films, but she achieved true stardom on TV as Seinfeld's inimitable Elaine Benes. Born to an affluent family and raised in Washington, D.C., Louis-Dreyfus studied theater at Northwestern University. Along with working as a member of The Practical Theater Company, Louis-Dreyfus cut her sharp comic teeth as part of Chicago's Second City troupe. She soon followed in the footsteps of prior Second City-ers "John Belushi" and "Bill Murray", joining the cast of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" from 1982 to 1985 (along with Northwestern classmate and eventual husband "Brad Hall"). Louis-Dreyfus bounced to films with appearances in "Soul Man" (1986), "Woody Allen"'s "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986) and "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" (1989), before returning to TV on the second episode of a low-rated NBC primetime sitcom... Read More

A star of television and feature films, "Teri Hatcher" also holds the distinction of being the woman whose photographs were most frequently downloaded from the Internet in the late '90s. With her brunette hair, beautiful brown eyes, mischievous smile, and petite but curvaceous figure, it isn't difficult to imagine why. While Hatcher could probably thrive for years as a virtual pinup, there is more to her than drop-dead gorgeous looks. The daughter of a physicist and a computer programmer, she initially studied math and engineering at a San Francisco area community college before the acting bug bit. She later enrolled at the American Conservatory Theatre. At age 20, she was a cheerleader for the San Francisco 49ers. Hatcher made her television debut in 1985, playing Amy, one of the singing/dancing Mermaids on the revived anthology series "Love Boat". Shortly thereafter, she became a regular on the... Read More

Despite her efforts to be taken seriously as an actress, "Brooke Shields" has been unable to escape her youth, during which time she found herself in the precarious position of simultaneously being idolized as a late-'70s icon of adolescent wholesome virginal innocence and being constantly photographed in manners verging on the mildly pornographic. Shields' early career was managed and pushed by her mother, "Teri Shields", a small-time actress who placed her daughter in front of the camera before she was even one. As the Ivory Snow baby, Shields was once hailed as the "most beautiful baby in America." After spending many years hawking products, she was in such demand that her mother started marketing her under the logo ""Brooke Shields" & Co." Shields made her feature film debut in "Alice Sweet Alice" (1976), but did not become a bona fide star until French director "Louis Malle" cast her as a... Read More