Jessica Alba

Early Years

2006 NCLR ALMA Awards

Jessica Marie Alba was born April 28, 1981 in Pomona, California to Mark Alba and Cathy Jensen. Her father was in the Air Force in her younger years, moving the family around from California, to Biloxi, Mississippi and Del Rio, Texas, before finally settling for good back in California.

Alba’s spent much of her childhood suffering from various illnesses, including several bouts of pneumonia, asthma, appendicitis, tonsil cysts, and on two occasions, a collapsed lung. Recently, Alba has also claimed to have faced obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child.

Alba expressed an interest in acting at a young age and began taking acting classes at age 12. Less than one year later, she signed a contract with an agent.

Early Acting Jobs

The 1993 film Camp Nowhere was Alba’s big screen debut. Throughout her high school years, Alba had roles in The Secret Life of Alex Mack, the new Flipper TV series, Beverly Hills 90210, commercials for Nintendo and J.C.Penny’s, the new Love Boat, and several indie films, among others.

After graduating high school, Jessica Alba attended the Atlantic Theater Company, run by William H. Macy and David Memet, where she trained with Macy and Macy’s wife Felicity Huffman.

Dark Angel

After high school, Alba won roles in increasingly successful feature films - 1999’s Never Been Kissed, and 2000’s Idle Hands, but it was her starring role in the TV series Dark Angel that propelled her to stardom. Alba was selected by show creator James Cameron out of 1,200 hopefuls for the part of Max Guevera - the so called “genetically enhanced superhuman prototype” around whom the show’s plot revolved. The series only ran for two seasons but was hugely popular and made Alba a household name.

Movie Career

Alba at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Los Angeles Premiere

Since the end of Dark Angel, Alba has gone on to continued success on the big screen, with roles in Honey, Sin City, The Fantastic Four, and Into The Blue.

She has several movies in the works for late 2006 and 2007, including:

• Awake
• Good Luck Chuck
• Bill
• The Eye
• The Ten
• Sin City 2
• Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer

Personal

Jessica Alba has topped too many magazine “hot body” lists to count, but the actress is frustrated at the prospect of becoming known only for her physical attributes - “Some how I don’t think this is happening to Natalie Portman,” Alba has said.

Alba has also frequently been frustrated by speculation over her racial heritage. Her father is Mexican American and her mother is of Dutch and French descent. Because of her appearance, she is often called a Latino actress - something that Alba does not mind, but she was dismayed when fans of the Fantastic Four protested her casting in the film, despite dying her hair blonde for the role, because they believed the part was meant for a a “white” girl.

Jessica Alba has been dating fellow actor Cash Warren since January, 2005. The two met on the set of the film The Fantastic Four.

Jessica Alba Trivia

• Jessica Alba has three tattoos - the Sanskrit word for “lotus” on her wrist, a bow on her lower back, and a daisy and ladybird on the back her neck.

• In 2001, Alba suffered from anorexia.

• Alba was previously engaged to Michael Weatherly, her Dark Angel co-star.

• Alba is a PADI certified scuba diver.

• Playboy magazine’s March 2006 issue featured Alba on the cover - a move to which she objected, since it suggested that she appeared nude in the magazine. She dropped a lawsuit after Hugh Hefner issued an apology.

• Alba is an ardent environmentalist.