Jessica Alba Biography

Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981, in Pomona, California) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in Dark Angel, Honey, Sin City, Fantastic Four and Into the Blue.

Early life

Alba was born in Pomona, California to Mark Alba and Cathy Jensen. Her father is a Mexican American, while her maternal grandfather was of Danish descent and her Canadian maternal grandmother was of French, English and Italian descent. Alba was raised in an Air Force family, living with her devoutly Catholic parents, her brother Joshua and her grandparents until she was sixteen. She grew up a sports fanatic. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi and Del Rio, Texas before they settled back in California when she was nine. 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 burst appendix, a cyst on her tonsils and asthma. 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 also revealed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child. Her health improved, however, when her family moved to California. Alba had expressed interest in acting since the age of five. She took her first acting class at age twelve, and she was signed by an acting agent nine months later.

Career

Alba's first appearance in film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role soon turned into a two month job when the actress in one of the more prominent roles in the film dropped out; Alba was picked to replace her because her hair matched that of the original actress.

Young Alba appeared in two national TV commercials for Nintendo and J.C. Penney; she was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into TV in 1994 with a recurring role as the insufferable young snob, 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 good use on the show, which was filmed in Australia. In 1995, she appeared in the film Venus Rising as Young Eve.

After graduating from high school at the age of 16, 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.

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..

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. But 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 Guevera on the Fox sci-fi TV series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, Alba was the definitive star in the series which ran for two seasons before being canceled in 2002. 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.

Alba's most prominent award nomination to date is that of a Golden Globe for "Lead Actress in a Drama Series" (TV) during the first season of Dark Angel.

Alba was engaged to her Dark Angel co-star Michael Weatherly, but it was called off. In January 2005, she began dating Cash Warren, a director's assistant on Fantastic Four, whom she met when filming that movie.

Jessica Alba named #1 in FHM magazine "100 Sexiest Women in the World 2007" list. The Hollywood beauty saw off supermodels, pop stars, actresses and royalty to be crowned this year's Sexiest Woman in the World. A record-breaking 8 million votes were recorded.

Jessica Alba married Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, on Monday, May 19, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Alba met Warren while making Fantastic Four in 2004. On June 7, 2008 Alba gave birth to a baby girl, Honor Marie Warren at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.

Jessica Alba Filmography - Movies - TV

• Sin City 2 (2009) (pre-production) .... Nancy Callahan
• The Love Guru (2008) (filming) .... Jane Bullard
• The Eye (2008/I) (post-production) .... Sydney Wells
• Bill (2007) .... Lucy
• Good Luck Chuck (2007) .... Cam Wexler
• 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) .... Sue Storm
  ... aka Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Germany) (USA: promotional title)
• The Ten (2007) .... Liz Anne Blazer
• Awake (2006) .... Sam
• Into the Blue (2005) .... Sam
• Fantastic Four (2005) .... Sue Storm
• Fantastic Four (2005) (VG) (voice) .... Susan Storm
• Sin City (2005) .... Nancy Callahan
  ... aka Frank Miller's Sin City (USA: complete title)
• Honey (2003) .... Honey Daniels
• "Mad TV"
  - Episode #9.5 (2003) TV Episode .... Jessica Simpson
• The Sleeping Dictionary (2003) .... Selima
• Dark Angel (2002) (VG) (voice) .... Max Guevara
• "Dark Angel"
  ... aka James Cameron's Dark Angel (USA)
  - Freak Nation (2002) TV Episode .... Max Guevera/X5-452
  - Love Among the Runes (2002) TV Episode .... Max Guevera/X5-452
  - She Ain't Heavy (2002) TV Episode .... Max Guevera/X5-452
  - Dawg Day Afternoon (2002) TV Episode .... Max Guevera/X5-452
  - Hello, Goodbye (2002) TV Episode .... Max Guevera/X5-452
• Paranoid (2000/I) .... Chloe
• Idle Hands (1999) .... Molly
• Never Been Kissed (1999) .... Kirsten Liosis
• P.U.N.K.S. (1999) .... Samantha Swoboda
  ... aka Rebels
• "The Love Boat: The Next Wave"
  - Remember? (1998) TV Episode .... Layla
• "Beverly Hills, 90210"
  - The Nature of Nurture (1998) TV Episode .... Leanne
  - Making Amends (1998) TV Episode .... Leanne
• "Brooklyn South"
  - Exposing Johnson (1998) TV Episode .... Melissa Hauer
• Too Soon for Jeff (1996) (TV) .... Christy
• "Chicago Hope"
  - Sexual Perversity in Chicago Hope (1996) TV Episode .... Florie Hernandez
• "Flipper" (1995) TV Series (as Jessica Marie Alba) .... Maya Graham (1995-1997)
  ... aka The New Adventures of Flipper (USA)
• Venus Rising (1995) .... Young Eve
• "The Secret World of Alex Mack"
  ... aka Alex Mack (USA: short title)
  - School Dance (1994) TV Episode .... Jessica
  - Hoop War (1994) TV Episode .... Jessica
  - The Accident (1994) TV Episode .... Jessica
• Camp Nowhere (1994) (as Jessica Marie Alba) .... Gail