Full Jessica Alba Biography
Jessica Alba debuted in "Camp Nowhere" (1993) and was originally hired for only two weeks. She ended up with a principal role when another actress suddenly dropped out. A few national commercials followed, which eventually led to her breakthrough role on the TV series "Flipper" (1995-97).
Jessica has also appeared in "Never Been Kissed" (1999), "Idle Hands" (1999) and the popular TV series "Dark Angel" (2000).
Additional Jessica Alba Biography
Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in Honey, Dark Angel, Sin City, Fantastic Four, Into the Blue and Idle Hands.
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 burst 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.
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.Alba in Edmonton on August 4, 2006 during the filming of Good Luck Chuck.
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.
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 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.Cover of the March 2006 issue of Playboy magazine. Alba filed but later dropped a lawsuit against the magazine.
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.
when older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault, and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman." She also ... disagrees with the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality, and was bothered by the lack of strong female role models in the Bible. "It certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life."”
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".
