TangGo: Jessica Alba

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

Biography

Early life :

Alba was born in Pomona, California, to Mark Alba, who is Mexican American (though both of Jessica Alba's paternal grandparents were born in California),and Catherine Jensen, who has French and Danish ancestry; the two married while in their teenage years.[ Her maternal grandfather was a Marine noncom for thirty 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 17 years old. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi and Del Rio, Texas, before they settled back in California.

She has also acknowledged suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder during childhood.

Career

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 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, Alba was the 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. 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.

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.
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, Both GQ and I Style magazines had Alba on their June covers, and in May, after eight million votes, FHM named Alba the winner as 2007’s Sexiest Woman in the World.
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.

Personal life

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 ladybird 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.

Filmography

2007 : Sin City 2, The Eye 2 Part 2, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Eye, The Ten, Bill, Good Luck Chuck, Awake.

2005 : Into the Blue, Fantastic Four, Sin City, Honey, The Sleeping Dictionary,

2000–2002 : Dark Angel.

2000 : Paranoid .

1999 : Idle Hands, Never Been Kissed, P.U.N.K.S.

1996 : Too Soon for Jeff.

1995–1996 : Flipper .

1995 : Venus Rising, Young Eve .

1994: Camp Nowhere.

Awards

2000: Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television — Dark Angel
2001: TV Guide Awards for Breakout Star of the Year — Dark Angel
2001: Teen Choice Awards for Choice Actress — Dark Angel
2006: (Maxim) top 100- Most beautiful woman alive
2006: MTV Movie Awards 2006 for Sexiest Performance - Sin City
2007: Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards, June 13, 2007. Named "Hottest Jessica".