Celebrity Wallpapers, Biographies Information Cameron Diaz

While her teen contemporaries were struggling with mundane things like school and dating, Southern California native Cameron Diaz was employed by the Elite Modeling agency appearing on magazine covers and in campaigns for clients like Calvin Klein and Levi s. And just like many women in the modeling industry, she harbored dreams of an acting career. Diaz, of Cuban and Native American descent, burst onto the big screen as the torch-singing moll in 1994 s Jim Carrey blockbuster The Mask .

Perhaps ironically, she had set her sights lower, auditioning for the supporting part of a reporter (played in the film by Amy Yasbeck), but after some dozen callbacks, she was hired. In spite of, or perhaps because of, her lack of formal training, the now blonde Diaz managed to hold her own against the often over-the-top antics of co-star Carrey. Roger Ebert writing in his review in the Chicago Sun-Times (July 29, 1994) called her a true discovery in the film, a genuine sex bomb with a gorgeous face, a wonderful smile, and a gift of comic timing, and correctly predicted that while it was her first film role, it would surely not be her last.

Riding the buzz on her performance in The Mask , Diaz was courted by virtually every producer scrambling to cast this year s blonde . In a series of shrewd moves, she opted to take roles in low-budget films which stretched her acting abilities. Diaz joined a cast of other rising players (including Courtney B.

Vance, Ron Eldard and Annabeth Gish) as liberal college students who invite right-wingers to The Last Supper (1995) before tackling the role of a confused bride-to-be who finds herself attracted to her brother-in-law in Feeling Minnesota (1996). Willing to portray less than likable women, she deftly essayed a former hooker now a Wall Street shark in Edward Burns comedy She s the One (also 1996). Although she stumbled as a spoiled rich girl who conspires with her kidnapper in Danny Boyle s uneven A Life Less Ordinary (1997), that same year found her playing Dermot Mulroney s fiancee who encounters a rival in Julia Roberts in the fluffy but enjoyable My Best Friend s Wedding .

While most of the attention originally focused on Roberts return to lighter fare, the spotlight shifted to Diaz s scene-stealing turn as the seemingly ditsy bride-to-be.