Film critics are quick to compare Monica Bellucci to previous Italian beauties, but she is her own brand of sultry icon. With roles as a topless vampire in Bram Stoker's Dracula, a taciturn war widow in Malèna (2000), a charmed courtesan in Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) (2002), and a sci-fi vixen in the Matrix sequels (2003), Bellucci has proved to be a bold blend of earthy and ethereal, actress and star. Born on September 30, 1968, Bellucci grew up in the small Italian village of Citta di Castello, where her father owned a trucking company. At 18, she enrolled at the University of Perugia with plans to study law. To pay her tuition, Bellucci started modeling.

Two years later, she dropped out of school to relocate to Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. Besides strutting the cat walk in fashion shows, Bellucci appeared in international advertising campaigns for designers such as Dolce & Gabbana. With her modeling career in full swing, she began to take acting classes and made her screen debut in the television film Vita Coi Figli (Life With the Sons) in 1990. After acting in several Italian features, Bellucci graced American screens for the first time as one of Dracula's (Gary Oldman) brides in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), which also starred Keanu Reaves and Winona Ryder. She subsequently returned to Italy to appear in the heist film I Mitici (The Heroes) (1994) and the children's movie Palla di Neve (Snowbal) (1995). As time passed, Bellucci grew increasingly frustrated with the failure of Italy's film industry to promote its projects abroad. She starred opposite Ben Kingsley and Dominique Sanda in the American television movie Joseph (1995), before looking for work in French films. Bellucci made her French-language debut in 1996's award-winning romance L'Appartement (The Apartment). She earned a César nomination for her performance in the role, as well as began dating her co-star, French actor Vincent Cassel. The couple (who married a few years later) re-teamed onscreen immediately, portraying comically troubled lovers in the gender-bending romance Come Mi Vuoi (As You Want Me) (1996) and murderous bank robbers in Jan Kounen's infamous thriller Dobermann (1997). In 2000, Bellucci returned to Hollywood to play Gene Hackman's estranged trophy wife in Under Suspicion. The film's director, Stephen Hopkins, had seen L'Appartement on a transatlantic flight and requested that she star in the thriller. That same year, the actress earned unprecedented worldwide acclaim for her performance as the title character in Malèna. Helmed by award-winning director GiuseppE Tornatore, the film featured Bellucci as a quiet young bride who is left alone in a small Sicilian town when her husband goes off to fight in World War II.

Stunningly attractive, she struggles to keep her dignity as she is spurned by the female villagers and preyed upon by the men. Bellucci followed up Malèna's success with another international hit, Christophe Gans' genre hybrid Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) (2002). The stylish cross between period piece and kung-fu flick (which also starred Cassel) was the fourth most successful film of its year in France. After conquering Europe, the film became an art house hit in the States and Bellucci received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress from the U.S. Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. The subject of numerous fan sites and men's magazine articles, Bellucci went on to star as the seductive Queen of the Nile in the comic book adaptation Astérix & Obélisk: Mission Cléopâtre. In 2001, she joined Dracula co-star Keanu Reeves in the cast of the highly anticipated follow-ups to The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). Soon after, Bruce Willispersonally chose Bellucci to play a humanitarian doctor whom he must save from war-torn Nigeria in Tears of the Sun, director Antoine Fuqua's follow-up to his hit Training Day (2001).

In 2004, Bellucci's momentum continued to build when she starred as Mary Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson's self-produced blockbuster retelling of the final 12 hours of Jesus Christ. In the wake of that film's success, Bellucci teamed with two other renowned directors, Terry Gilliam and Spike Lee, with roles in The Brothers Grimm and She Hate Me, respectively. Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

EMMA WATSON

Emma Watson made her big-screen debut in 2001's box-office smash Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, bringing to life Hermione Granger, friend to the famous protagonist Harry Potter of J.K. Rowling's children's novel. Born in Paris, where she lived for the first five years of her life, Watson acted only in school plays before breaking into Hollywood with this film, but her performance skills had been honed through dancing, singing, and poetry recitals, the latter of which she had already received recognition for by the age of seven. In the years following that blockbuster, she reprised her role alongside co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grit for the subsequent beloved Harry Potter films. A self-avowed serious student at an all-girls school in Oxford, England, Watson signed on for the final two installments of the series, but decided to temporarily put further project offers aside to focus on her studies. Sarah Sloboda, All Movie Guide

MILEY CYRUS-HANNA MONTANNA

American actress Destiny Hope Cyrus, or more commonly known as Miley Cyrus, was born on November 23, 1992, in Nashville, Tenn. Miley is the daughter of country singer/actor Billy Ray Cyrus, and her name comes from the shortened nickname for "Smiley." In 2006, she landed the role of a regular girl and rock star on the Disney channel original series "Hannah Montana." Also, her favorite sport is cheerleading.The daughter of country-music superstar Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus got her start in the entertainment industry on an episode of her father's PAX TV medical series Doc before appearing in Tim Burton's fantastical 2003 adventure Big Fish. A fateful appearance as the character Hannah Montana in the Disney Channel series The Suite Life of Zack and Cody followed in 2006, and her character proved so popular that a spin-off series called Hannah Montana was launched shortly thereafter. In the series, Cyrus portrayed a fun-loving California teen who just happens to be moonlighting as a world-famous pop star. Only Hannah's family (which includes her real-life father on the series) and her two closest friends, Lilly (Emily Osment) and Oliver (Mitchel Musso), know the truth about Hannah's remarkable secret life. Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

LINDSAY LOHAN

Child actress Lindsay Lohan was already an experienced performer when she made her feature debut in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap. Born in New York City, Lohan began modeling at age three. After appearing in numerous TV commercials, Lohan moved to series TV with a role on the soap operaAnother World from 1996 to 1997. Cast as The Parent Trap's scheming twin sisters after a six month search for just the right girl, Lohan succeeded in filling Hayley Mills' shoes, winning over audiences with her pert charm as both the Californian Hallie and the British-raised Annie. She subsequently starred in the Disney TV film Life-Size (2000). Subsequently cast in actress Bette Midler's short-lived sitcom Bette, Lohan took a turn as a teenage gossip columnist (Get a Clue[2002 classic, Freaky Friday (2003). Stepping into the shoes formerly filled by JodieFoster, Lohan and co-star Jamie Lee Curtisbrought a winning, new chemistry to the film that made it a sleeper summer hit. Lohan kicked off 2004 with her first big starring vehicle, the comedy Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Met with mixed reviews and modest box-office receipts, the film didn't cross over from the teen audience the way Friday did.

Only a mere two months later, Lohan proved she could carry a film. The Tina Fey-penned Mean Girls debuted at number one, recouping its budget and then some in its first week of release. The spotlight on the then-16-year-old Lohan changed almost overnight, as she quickly became a tabloid fixture: speculation on her body, her nightclubbing, her string of high-profile boyfriends, her incarcerated father, and her feuds with a variety of other young female celebrities became inescapable. Perhaps predictably, 2004 also saw Lohan branch out into the world of pop music with the album Speak; the supposedly confessional -- and similarly undistinguished -- A Little More Personal followed in 2005. All of the hullabaloo seemed to have little effect on her work, as she starred in Herbie Fully Loaded for Disney -- suffering a bout of "exhaustion" on set -- before graduating to more adult fare with Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion. Playing a morose poetess, the young actress ably held her own against Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin when the film opened in 2006; around that time, her first shot at a "grown-up" romantic comedy, Just My Luck, opened to little notice from the public or critics. Undaunted, Lohan set to work on another grande-dame comedy, Georgia Rule, in which she played a wayward, risk-taking teenage girl who is hauled off to live with her stern grandmother (Jane Fonda) for the summer. Perhaps fittingly, Lohan's own tardy behavior on the Georgia Rule set prompted a very public memo from the film's backers, who claimed her late-night partying was endangering the shoot; a short stay in rehab followed in early 2007.

For all the publicity generated by Lohan's wild-child routine, Georgia Rule tanked when it opened in May of that year, although many critics preferred Lohan's performance over those of her histrionic co-stars Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman. The actress' R-rated summer blitz continued with the thriller I Know Who Killed Me, just as her work in the widely panned Mark David Chapman biopic Chapter 27 made the festival rounds. This trifecta of flops was complemented by an increasingly erratic public image, as she found herself involved in two DUI arrests within two months' time that same summer. Both prompted stays in rehab, as well as mammoth media attention. Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

ANGELINA JOLIE

Next to Liv Tyler, Angelina Jolie is the only actress of her generation who can thank her famous father for the lips that have become her trademark. The actress was born Angelina Jolie Voight to the pillow-lipped Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles.Raised mostly by her mother after her parents divorced while she was still a baby, Jolie moved around a lot with her mother and brother. She also did a fair amount of traveling as a professional model, living in such places as London, New York, and Los Angeles before settling for a time in New York as a student at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and New York University, where she first started acting in theater productions. The fledgling actress soon moved on to film with a small role in 1993's Cyborg 2 followed in 1995 by her turn as a computer hacker in the more widely seen Hackers. The film gave her her first taste of recognition, as well as an introduction to Trainspotting's Jonny Lee Miller, to whom she was married for a short time.After appearing in a number of mediocre films, Jolie finally hit it big in 1997 with her Golden Globe-winning performance as George Wallace's wife in the highly acclaimed TV movie George Wallace. The role, coupled with her Emmy-nominated performance in the title role of HBO's Gia, provided Jolie with a new level of professional respect and recognition. She was soon appearing on talk shows and in magazines, answering questions about everything from her multiple tattoos to her famous father to her brief marriage.She was also netting roles in high-profile projects: In 1998 Jolie headlined an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, Anthony Edwards, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe, and Madeline Stowe in Playing By Heart. The following year, she was part of another high-voltage cast in Mike Newell's Pushing Tin, co-starring alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Although the film was neither a critical nor a financial success, it did little to diminish the rapid ascent of the career of the actress, who was in hot demand for projects that would further elevate her already rising star. In 2000, Jolie's star received one of its greatest boosts to date when the actress won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a volatile mental patient in Girl, Interrupted. Later that year, her personal life also got a boost in the form of her April marriage to Billy Bob Thornton.Onscreen, Jolie was hard to miss in 2000. She starred in a number of films, including the crime thriller Gone in Sixty Seconds, in which she co-starred as a car thief alongside Nicolas Cage, and Original Sin, a thriller that featured her as the bad-seed bride of a Cuban tycoon (Antonio Banderas). If she was hard to miss in 2000, Jolie was impossible to escape in 2001 with her turn as shapely video-game adventuress Lara Croft in the long anticipated film adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider video-game franchise. Carrying on the tradition of video-game movies that are light on plot but heavy on the action, Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life (2003) scored with summer audiences and quickly shot to number one at the box office despite disparaging reviews citing an incoherent story line, unlike Life or Something Like It, the 2002 romantic comedy-drama that critics and audiences alike would rather not have seen. On July 18th, 2002, Jolie filed for divorce from Thornton, claiming that their priorities no longer meshed after having adopted a Cambodian son, Maddox. Though the famously quirky couple were no longer, Angelina's film schedule remained hectic. In 2003 she would play a rich-girl-turned-humanitarian in Beyond Borders, while 2004 saw a host of parts for Jolie, including a role in Oliver Stone's Alexander, an epic biography of Alexander the Great starring Colin Farrell, as well as a turn alongside fellow Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and a role as a tough FBI agent in the thriller Taking Lives. Finally, Jolie closed out the year by lending her voice to Dreamworks' animated kid-flick Shark Tale.While the Jolie-starring Mr. and Mrs. Smith proved one of Summer 2005's biggest money-makers, the actress's name fell on the lips of gossip-mongers for most of the year not for the film itself, but rather for Jolie's relationship with costar Brad Pitt. Though the couple long shirked and denied rumors of an affair, the paparazzi regularly caught them together in public, and Pitt eventually filed for divorce from wife Jennifer Aniston. Subsequently, they not only conceived a child in fall 2005 (whom they named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, but became foster parents to two adopted children, Maddox and an Ethiopian girl, Zahara Marley. Jolie delivered Shiloh in Namibia, via caesarian section, as May 2006 wrapped, and the couple flew an ob-gyn in from Los Angeles to assist with the birth. By mid-2006, Jolie - as an actress, personality, and sex symbol - claimed an almost matchless status in Hollywood popularity, rivaled only by Jennifer Aniston, ironically. That year saw Jolie claim a supporting role in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd, and announce her forthcoming role in Beowulf. By late 2007, talk had begun to swirl in the trades regarding Jolie's enlistment in a high-budget action franchise based on the life and adventures of U.S. intelligence operative Kathi Lynn Austin. Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

HALLE BERRY

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 Jungle Fever. It was on the set of the film that she first earned her reputation for her full commitment to acting, reportedly refusing to bathe for weeks in preparation for her portrayal of a crack addict.Following her film debut, Berry was cast opposite Eddie Murphy in Boomerang (1992) as the comedian's love interest; not only did she hold her own against Murphy, but the same year she did acclaimed work in the title role of the Alex Haley miniseries Queen, playing a young woman struggling against the brutal conditions of slavery.After a comedic turn as sultry secretary Sharon Stone in the 1994 live-action version of The Flintstones, Berry returned to more serious fare with her role in the adoption drama Losing Isaiah (1995). Starring opposite Jessica Lange as a former crack addict battling to win custody of her child, who as a baby was adopted by an affluent white couple, Berry earned a mixed reception from critics, some of whom noted that her scenes with Lange highlighted Berry's own shortcomings.However, critical opinion of the actress' work was overwhelmingly favorable in 1998, when she starred as a street smart young woman who comes to the aid of a bumbling politician in Warren Beatty's Bullworth. The following year, Berry won even greater acclaim -- and an Emmy and Golden Globe -- for her turn as tragic screen siren Dorothy Dandridge in the made-for-cable Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Unfortunately, any acclaim Berry enjoyed was overshadowed by her widely publicized brush with the law in February of 2000, when she allegedly ran a red light, slammed into another car, and then left the scene of the accident. The actress, who suffered a gash to her forehead (the driver of the other car sustained a broken wrist), was booked in a misdemeanor court in early April of that year.Fortunately for Berry, her subsequent onscreen work removed the spotlight from her legal troubles; that same year, she starred as Storm in Bryan Singer's hugely successful adaptation of The X-Men. Working alongside a cast that included Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, and Anna Paquin, Berry was hailed for her work as the first African-American comic book heroine on the screen. Acclaim was not quite as forthcoming for her work opposite John Travolta in Dominic Sena's cheesy thriller Swordfish, which touted itself as the first movie to feature Berry baring her breasts. Unfortunately, it didn't allow for equal exploitation of the talents that Berry possessed above her collarbone.Berry again bared more than her character's inner turmoil in Monster's Ball (2001), a romantic drama directed by Marc Forster that starred the actress as a woman who becomes involved with a racist ex-prison-guard (Billy Bob Thornton) who oversaw the prison execution of her husband (Sean Combs). Berry earned wide critical praise for her work in the film, as well as Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Actress. And though she may have lost out to Sissy Spacek in the Golden Globes, her night at the Oscars found Berry the favored performer as took home a statue for Best Actress. A momentous footnote in Academy Award history, Berry's win marked the first time an African American had been bestowed that particular honor.Although her turn in the James Bond flick Die Another Day was so successful that talk began of a spin-off film, Berry's first true post-Oscar vehicle Gothika proved to be unpopular with both critics and moviegoers. Luckily, 2003 wasn't a total loss for her though as X2: X-Men United was a box-office smash and was regarded by many to be superior to its predecessor. Sticking with comic-books as source-material, Berry could be seen in Catwoman the following Summer. The film was the biggest flop of her career, panned by audiences and critics, and earning the actress a coveted Razzie for her terrible performance. She won back a great deal of respect, however, by starring in the made for TV adaptation of the Zora Neale Hurston novel Their Eyes Were Watching God the next year. She followed this moving performance with a return to her X-Men comrades for X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006, then signed on to star alongside a decidedly creepy Bruce Willis in the suspense thriller Perfect Stranger (2007), directed by James Foley. In that film, she portrayed a hard-nosed reporter prone to catching and indicting sleazebags, who becomes unduly implicated with a pathological corporate big wig responsible for murdering his wife (Willis). The film netted mostly negative reviews (one prominent critic branded it as yet another ill-advised choice for Berry), but such comments seemed myopic and ham-handed in retrospect; whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the film per se, the Stranger part in fact represented one of three extremely ambitious assignments in a powerhouse year for Berry that demanded the utmost of the actress's dramatic abilities: the others included the uplifting psychological drama Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) - as an emotionally shattered housewife, reeling from the tragic violent death of her husband, who finds unlikely solace in a friendship with a recovering heroin addict (Benicio del Toro); and Class Act (2007), as a real-life middle school teacher who runs for Congress at the behest of her students and captures a whopping 35 of the popular vote. Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

JESSICA ALBA

One of the crop of bright-eyed, dewy-skinned young actors to attain teen idoldom and a regular paycheck during the late 1990s, Jessica Alba closed out the century as one of Hollywood's more promising new talents. Born in Pomona, California, on April 28, 1981, Alba, whose father was in the Air Force, moved with her family to Biloxi, Mississippi, when she was an infant, but she eventually moved back to California nine years later. It was back in California that she embarked on an acting career; having been in love with the idea of acting since she was five, Alba took her first acting class at the age of 12, and nine months later, she landed her first agent.

She got her start on television, making appearances on shows like Beverly Hills 90210, and she made her film debut in the 1994 kids comedy Camp Nowhere. Originally cast in a minor role in the film, she got her first big break when the principal actress dropped out and she was asked to take over. Following her debut, Alba did a great deal of work on television. She got her first substantial film role as the object of the protagonist's disastrous affection in the teen horror comedy Idle Hands in 1999; that same year, she played one of the nasty popular girls who terrorize Drew Barrymore in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed. The following year Alba made waves on the small screen when she was cast in the much hyped Fox series Dark Angel, executive produced by James Cameron.

She was cast as a genetically-engineered woman who escapes from the lab and joins a cyberjournalist named Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) in his neverending fight against crime in a post-apocalyptic future. Though the series was cancelled after two seasons, Alba continued to appear in such indie features as Paranoid (2000) and The Sleeping Dictionary (2002); the little-seen Glitter-esque dancer drama Honey similarly did little to enhance her profile. All that would change, however, when Alba became one of the core members of the quartet of the Fantastic Four franchise. Mostly reviled by critics but a solid success with audiences, her role as the spontaneously invisible Susan Storm endeared her to 10-year-old sci-fi geeks everywhere. Now a blockbuster actress, Alba attempted to balance this heightened profile with roles in pedestrian thrillers (Into the Blue), audacious pulp noirs (Sin City) and gross-out rom-coms (Good Luck Chuck). Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT

Personifying the type of teen spirit most commonly found in Noxzema ads and pep-squad meets, actress Jennifer Love Hewitt has brought new meaning to the word "effervescent." The '90s saw Hewitt go from relative obscurity to a bona fide teen queen, to say nothing of one of the most frequently enshrined actresses on the internet. Hewitt was born on February 21, 1979, in Waco, TX. She made her first appearance on television in 1984 in the show Kids Incorporated (which, coincidentally, once guest-starred Scott Wolf, her Party of Five co-star). She also did a multitude of commercials, even doing a stint as an L.A. Gear spokesgirl at the age of ten. After spending the majority of the '80s working in television, Hewitt got her first film role in the 1993 film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, but it wasn't until she got her big break as Sarah Reeves on Party of Five(1994) that she began to gain recognition. More recognition came first in the form of trojan war(1997) and then I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film, which capitalized on the growing trend in teen horror flicks catalyzed by Wes Craven's Scream (1996), proved to be immensely popular among audiences, if not critics; it was predictably followed by a sequel, the aptly titled I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998).

In addition to her film work, which also included 1998's Can't Hardly Wait, Hewitt maintained her role in Party of Five and continued to star in commercials, most notably as the Neutrogena spokesgirl, as well as headlining her own Fox series, Time of Your Life, in which her Party of Five character, Sarah Reeves, moves to New York to look for her father. Affectionately known as Love by family and friends, Hewitt has had moderate success as a pop singer, as well as on the big screen. She made her American musical debut in 1995 with the release of Lets Go Bang, and could also be heard singing two tracks for the House Arrest (1996) soundtrack in addition to playing a lead role in the film itself. Can't Hardly Wait, a 1998 teen movie which featured Hewitt as the girl du jour, made enough of a splash in the genre to be parodied in 2002's Not Another Teen Movi.

In 2000, Hewitt received some critical acclaim for her portrayal of Audrey Hepburn in The Audrey Hepburn Story, a made-for-television dramatization of Hepburn's life. The next year, Hewitt starred opposite Alien queen Sigourney Weaver in Heartbreakers, which featured the two actresses as mother-and-daughter con artists. The year 2002 brought Hewitt the opportunity to star opposite martial-arts favorite Jackie Chan in The Tuxedo, though the movie would tank among critics and audiences alike. After lending her vocal chords to a series of animated roles (The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina [2002 [2001]), Hewitt wouldn't return to a major theatrical role until 2004. She is scheduled to work with Val Kilmer in Marc F. Adler's Delgo, as well as play lead roles in Gil Junger's If Only and in the much anticipated 2004 adaptation of Garfield starring Bill Murray. A return to the small screen as a newlywed medium with the supernatural ability to communicate with the recently departed in Ghost Whisperer earned Hewitt a Saturn nomination for best actress in 2006, and later that same year it was once again time for a battle of wills with everyone's favorite lasagne-loving cat in the family fun sequel Garfiend: A Tale of Two Kitties. Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

KATE BECKINSALE

First making an impression on international audiences with her role as the sweet, virginal Hero in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993), pale-skinned, fine-boned British actress Kate Beckinsale has since stepped beyond period pieces to prove that she is anything but a fragile English rose. The daughter of a BBC casting director and famed television actor Richard Beckinsale (known for roles on Porridge and Rising Damp), Beckinsale was born July 26, 1973. After her father's death from a heart attack in 1979, the actress was raised by her mother. By her own account, Beckinsale's childhood and adolescence were fairly troubled, marked by struggles with anorexia. She decided to follow in her father's acting footsteps while still a teenager and in 1991, had her major television debut in Once Against the Wind, a World War II drama in which she played Judy Davis daughter. The same year, Beckinsale enrolled at Oxford, to study French and Russian Literature, and pursued her education until committing herself full-time to acting. In 1993, while still a student at Oxford, Beckinsale was cast in Branagh's MucH Ado About Nothing. Her supporting role was a memorable one, winning the actress a limited amount of recognition amongst American audiences, but it was not until 1995, when she starred in John Schlesinger's adaptation of Stella Gibbons' -Cold Comfort Farm, that her wattage began to increase, at least in art houses everywhere.

The film, which was initially made for BBC television, proved to be a modest hit, bringing in respectable box office and glowing reviews. Beckinsale followed the film's success with another two years later, starring as an altruistic con artist in the quirky romantic comedy Shooting Fish. The film was an unqualified hit in its native country, becoming the third-highest grossing film in England for 1997. The same year, Beckinsale further increased her visibility with the title role in A&E's Emma. She next graced American movie screens in Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998). She received good reviews for her portrayal of a cool and catty WASP college graduate (for which she assumed an American accent), although the movie itself met with a deeply mixed reaction.

The following year, Beckinsale, in addition to giving birth to a daughter (fathered by longtime boyfriend Michael Sheen), starred in her first big-budget Hollywood feature. Playing opposite Claire Danes in Brokedown Palace, the actress portrayed an American girl who, while on vacation with best friend Danes in Thailand, gets caught with heroin and is sentenced to 33 years in a Thai prison. That mid-budgeted film, however, was nothing compared to her next major Hollywood production. After essaying roles in a television production of Alice Through the Looking Glass (1999) and the Merchant/Ivory production of Henry James' -The Golden Bowl (2000), Beckinsale was plucked from relative obscurity by director Michael Bay for his lavish World War II epic, Pearl Harbor (2001). Boasting a record-setting, nine-digit price tag and one of the most aggressive marketing campaigns ever waged on the American public, the film featured the actress as Evelyn, a plucky nurse torn between the affections of two soldiers. Though a brief foray into Laurel Canyon found Beckinsale essaying the low-key role of a Harvard graduate gone astray after a taste of the wild side of life, she once again shifted into high gear for the big-budget vampire versus werewolf battle royal Underworld in 2003. Sporting the sort of gothic vinyl duds that had fanboys crooning, Beckinsale raised arms against a brutal breed of lycanthropes and few could argue that she didn't look good doing it.

So good, in fact, that not only a sequel but a prequel followed. That same year, Beckinsale and Underworld director Len Wiseman wedded. Soon thereafter the starlet was once again doing battle with the undead (opposite X-Man's Hugh Jackman) in the action horror adventure Van Helsing. At the end of 2004 Beckinsale turned in a solid performance as Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese's multiple Oscar winning Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. While she would be out of theaters in 2005, Beckinsale returned in two very different projects the following year. In addition to starring in another Underworld, Beckinsale portrayed Adam Sandler's wife in the comedy Click. Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

JENNIFER LOPEZ

Jennifer Lopez's first serious screen role in Gregory Nava's 1995 Latino melodrama My Family followed years of training in television movies and series. Like Rosie Perez, Lopez began her career as a Fly Girl -- a dancer on the sketch comedy series, In Living Color -- and appeared in music videos by Puff Daddy and Janet Jackson. Her big break came in 1997 when she appeared in the title role of Nava's Selena, the story of the successful Tejano singer who was tragically murdered in 1995. Lopez was at first cast as a femme fatale -- due in no small part to her classic Latina beauty (she was born in the Bronx to parents of Puerto Rican descent) -- and worked almost exclusively with acclaimed directors: Francis Ford Coppola (Jack, 1996), Oliver Stone (U-Turn, 1997), and Bob Rafelson (Blood and Wine, 1996).

In 1998, she had one of her most acclaimed roles, starring opposite George Clooney in Out of Sight, Steven Soderbergh's adaptation the Elmore Leonard novel. Cast as a deputy federal marshal who falls for a charming criminal (Clooney), Lopez won raves for her tough, sexy performance, and in the process, she became the highest paid Latina actress in Hollywood history. That same year, she earned an introduction to a new generation of fans by lending her voice to the popular Antz(1998). The lavish but much more adult-oriented thriller The Cell (2000) followed shortly thereafter, bringing Lopez one of her first number-one openings. In an attempt to curry favor from the rom-com crowd, Lopez lightened things up a bit opposite Matthew McConaughey in 2001's romantic comedy The Wedding Planner.

Though Lopez was consistently smooth in her frequent transitions from actress to songstress, her next role in the supernatural romance Angel Eyes (2001) failed to click with audiences and critics alike, and her role in the cathartic revenge thriller Enough (2002) likewise disappeared from theaters shortly after its release. Though Maid in Manhattan (2002) was ultimately relegated to a similar fate as her last few films, few could anticipate the outright hostility with which her 2003 comedy Gigli would be greeted. In the movie, Lopez was cast as a female gangster assigned to keep an eye on a kidnapper (played by then-real-life-boyfriend Ben Affleck) who is holding a psychologically challenged young boy hostage. The harsh public backlash against the film was likely due (at least in part) to over-saturated media coverage of the duo's tumultuous off-screen relationship. Though the film's failure wasn't exactly what one would call a career-ender for either star, their shoddy onscreen dynamic reportedly led director Kevin Smith to excise most of Lopez' role in the Affleck-starrer Jersey Girl.Finally, in 2005, it appeared the actress' string of bad box-office luck had possibly reached its end. Teaming up with Jane Fonda for the latter thespian's first feature in over a decade, Lopez scored a modest hit with the comedy Monster In-Law.

The Lasse Hallstrom-helmed drama An Unfinished Life followed later the same year with Lopez opposite heavy-hitters Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman.In 2006, Lopez tried her hand at producing with Bordertown, a thriller she also starred in opposite Antonio Banderas.In addition to her screen work, Lopez has also enjoyed a successful singing career on the dance-pop circuit. Denise Sullivan, All Movie Guide

JENNIFER GARNER

While landing a guest spot on a hit television series would be a welcome event for most up-and-coming actresses, Jennifer Garner's brief run on Felicity proved especially fortunate for her -- thanks to her appearance on the show, she met her future husband, and the producer who would cast her in the leading role of the successful action/adventure series Alias. Jennifer Garner was born in Houston, TX, in 1972; when she was very young, her family relocated to Charleston, WV, where she grew up. Garner was the second of three daughters, and early on developed an interest in ballet. After graduating from George Washington High School in Charleston, Garner attended Denison University in Granville, OH, where she became interested in drama, and eventually received a degree in theater. After college, Garner moved to New York and began auditioning for stage roles, landing her first part only a month after arriving in town in 1995 as an understudy in the Broadway production of +A Month in the Country. Later that same year, Garner moved to Los Angeles and began working in television, making her screen debut in the made-for-TV movie Zoya. Over the next two years, Garner landed guest roles on several television shows, including Spin City and Law & Order, and small parts in several motion pictures, among them Deconstructing Harry, In Harm's Way, and Mr. Magoo. 1998 found Garner cast as the female lead on the short-lived Fox drama Significant Others, and while the show only aired for a little over a month, Garner fared much better with a showy recurring role on Felicity, where she played Hannah, the former girlfriend of Noel Crane, played by Scott Foley. Though Garner claims she had to go through five rounds of auditions before she was given the role, she certainly made an impression on co-star Foley; they soon began dating, and were married in the fall of 2000. Garner's work on Felicity helped win her a major supporting role on the television series Time of Your Life, a spin-off of Party of Five starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. The heavily promoted series was a ratings disappointment, but Garner received enthusiastic notices, and began winning film roles in high-profile projects such as Pearl Harbor and DudE,Where's My Car? In 2000, J.J. Abrams, who produced Felicity, was preparing a new series for ABC about a female spy living a triple life as a college student and supposed bank employee, who is also a double agent working for the CIA. Abrams remembered Garner's impressive performance as Hannah, and cast her as Sydney Bristow in Alias. The show quickly became a success when it premiered in 2001, earning respectable ratings, strong reviews, and a devoted fan following who tuned in each week to see Garner beat up bad guys and don an impressive collection of slinky outfits. That same year, Garner also appeared opposite her husband, Foley, in a supporting role in the independent drama Rennie's Landing. Riding high on the success of Alias with a Golden Globe Award in hand, Garner continued to grow as a big-screen presence. After a memorable appearance in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can, Garner displayed the butt-kicking skills she honed on Alias, appearing as Elektra in the 2003 comic-book adaptation Daredevil. The next year, she took on her first big-screen starring role, playing an adolescent girl who wakes up to suddenly find herself all grown up in the romantic comedy 13 Going on 30. Sadly, also in 2004, Garner and husband Foley's marriage proved to be short-lived when they announced that they were getting a divorce. While continuing to star on Alias, Garner next geared up to star in her own Daredevil spin-off film, appropriately called Elektra. Unfortunately, when the movie was released in 2005 it bombed at the box office and was panned by critics, though many nonetheless complimented Garner's strong performance. All Movie Guide

PAMELA ANDERSON

Bleached blonde, buxom, but slender bombshell Pamela Anderson stands out in any crowd as one of the sex symbols of the mid-'90s. Known first as a spokesmodel for Labatt beer, then as one of Playboy magazine's most popular models, Anderson gained international recognition after she was cast as C.J., the sweet but tough lifeguard in the impossibly tight red bathing suit in the phenomenally popular syndicated television series Baywatch.

Her popularity has led to several film roles, notably that of the black leather bustier-wearing title heroine in the comic-book actioner Barb Wire (1996). The role was appropriate, for there is something indeed cartoonish about Anderson, who had enhanced her petite frame with big hairdos, surgically inflated lips, and silicon breast implants (since removed).

Anderson made a splash on the day she was born, as she was the first centennial baby in her region of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. She first attracted media notice in 1989, when a roving camera caught a glimpse of her during a professional football game in Vancouver. The picture of the cheering Anderson, who was wearing a Labatt's tee shirt at the time, was simultaneously shown on the arena's Jumbotron screen. Though her body was, surgically speaking, still in its original condition, her attributes and beauty were enough to cause a sensation. Labatt's executives remembered the crowd's positive reaction and hired her to become the brewery's spokeswoman.

She attracted the attention of Playboy and was hired to do a photo layout. She has since gone on to appear on the magazine's cover an unprecedented five times. Once in Hollywood, she changed her appearance and soon found work guest starring on television shows. Her first recurring role was on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement where she played Lisa, the Tool Time Girl. Anderson made her film debut playing a cheerleader in the low-budget actioner The Taking of Beverly Hills (1992). She has also appeared in a few television movies, including Come Die With Me: A Mickey Spillane's Mike hammer mistry (1994). Although an attempt to translate her small-screen success to the silver screen in the comic-book casablanca adaptation barb wire proved unsuccessful to say the least, Anderson continued to thrill television audiences in baywatch and stirred up much controversy when an extremely intimate honeymoon video of herself and then-husband Tommy Lee began making the rounds in 1998.

Though the couple parted ways that same year in a highly publicized divorce case, Anderson went on to marry another bad boy, Detroit musician kid rock after returning to television as a sexy secret agent on the series V.I.P. . Anderson shocked her fan base in early 2002 when she announced that she had contracted the Hepatitis C virus, but this wouldn't kept he bombshell down. She provided the voice for the sexy tongue-in-cheek star of the Spike TV animated series Striperella and made appearances on shows like Less Than Perfect and 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. In 2006, she appeared in Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary Borat. Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide