Best Known As: The title character in the movie Something About Mary
An athletic blonde with wide-set blue eyes, Cameron Diaz made a conspicuous movie debut opposite Jim Carrey in the wacky 1994 fantasy The Mask. Then she became a superstar by appearing in more than a dozen movies in just six years. In both independent and mainstream movies, Diaz played hot babes (She's the One, 1996), nice girls (There's Something About Mary, 1998), and even frumpy, neurotic types (Being John Malkovich, 1999). There's Something About Mary was a particular hit for Diaz, a raucous comedy featuring her as the beautiful and kindhearted object of desire for an eternally clumsy Ben Stiller. Her other films include Charlie's Angels (2000) and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003, both with Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu), Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis) and the CGI comedy series Shrek (2001-07, with Mike Myers). Diaz then took a break from the movies to appear on MTV in her own non-fiction adventure series, Trippin'. She returned to the big screen in the 2006 romantic comedy The Holiday, co-starring Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Jack Black, and also co-starred in What Happens in Vegas (2008, with Ashton Kutcher) and My Sister's Keeper (2009, starring Abigail Breslin).
Diaz's father is Cuban-American; her mother is a German, English, and native American mix... Diaz dates singer Justin Timberlake.
Career Highlights: Being John Malkovich, My Best Friend's Wedding, Charlie's Angels
First Major Screen Credit: The Mask (1994)
Biography
Model-turned-actress Cameron Diaz seemed to come out of nowhere when she made her 1994 screen debut opposite Jim Carrey in The Mask. However, her unusual beauty -- the result of her Cuban-American and Anglo-German-Native-American parentage -- helped to ensure that she would not be soon forgotten.
Born in San Diego, CA, on August 30, 1972, Diaz left school at 16 to become a model. For the next five years, she traveled the globe, working in Japan, Australia, Mexico, Morocco, and Paris. As a model for the Elite Agency, she did commercial work for such products as Coke, Nivea, and L.A. Gear. She returned to California at the age of 21 and was unknown in the film industry when cast in her breakthrough role as the target of Jim Carrey's hyper-animated lust in The Mask. Following the hoopla surrounding her performance -- or, more specifically, her physical appearance -- in the film, Diaz opted to take acting lessons and appear in a series of small, independent films, including The Last Supper (1995), She's the One (1996), and Feeling Minnesota (1996).
After starring opposite Ewan McGregor in Danny Boyle's A Life Less Ordinary (1997), Diaz further endeared herself to audiences and critics with her performance in My Best Friend's Wedding (1997). Proving herself an acceptable foil for the film's star, Julia Roberts, she went on to greater success in the Farrelly brothers' There's Something About Mary in 1998. Starring as the film's titular heroine, Diaz turned in an audience-pleasing performance in the cheerfully bawdy film, which proved to be one of the year's biggest box-office successes. The same year, Diaz cameoed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and starred as Jon Favreau's unhinged fiancée in the black comedy Very Bad Things. Now fully established as one of Hollywood's hottest properties, she accepted leads in 1999's Being John Malkovich, in which she played puppeteer John Cusack's wife, and Any Given Sunday, in which she played the president and co-owner of a football team in Oliver Stone's paean to American football.
In 2000, Diaz joined Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels, the much-hyped big-screen remake of the television classic. A comically self-aware and fairly faithful adaptation of the original series, Charlie's Angels served up Matrix-style action with retro-sensibilities, propelling the franchise into the new millennium. The following year found Diaz endearing herself to younger audiences as the voice of Princess Fiona in the animated box-office smash Shrek, as well as using her wide-eyed innocence to horrific effect in the Tom Cruise mindbender Vanilla Sky. Headlining the ill-fated comedy The Next Best Thing in 2002, Diaz would take a historical trip to the birthplace of America in director Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York before becoming the second (after Julia Roberts) actress to join the "20-Million-Dollar Club" with Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Like its predecessor, the film performed well at the box office, and Diaz further proved her box-office clout in 2004 when another sequel, Shrek 2, became the third-highest grossing film of all time.
Diaz switched gears altogether in 2005 when she headed to the small screen, hosting and producing the MTV reality show Trippin'. With its focus on ecology and conservation, the program found the actress and her celebrity pals traipsing the globe to explore various natural environments. Diaz also remained a strong presence in Hollywood during the Christmas season of 2005 in the well-received Curtis Hanson film In Her Shoes. In this picture -- adapted from the Jennifer Weiner novel by Susannah Grant -- Diaz plays the beautiful yet thoroughly harebrained and irresponsible Maggie, sister of the prim, proper, and conservative attorney Rose (Australian import Toni Collette), with whom she comes to blows during their ill-advised stint as roommates. As Maggie discovers a grandmother that she never knew existed (Shirley MacLaine) and travels to Florida to bond with the woman, Rose experiences a significant romantic breakup and decides to change careers. A long-buried and dormant secret from the past then comes to light that reunites the women and forges a path to reconciliation. In Her Shoes struck box-office gold and won the hearts of many critics. And though it surprised just about everyone who foresaw a dopey, lame-brained romantic comedy, assiduous devotees of Hanson's career were perhaps less shocked given the director's keen intelligence and marvelous track record.
Diaz maintained a relatively low profile throughout 2006, following up the Hanson film with yet another lightly comic dissection of contemporary relationships, Nancy Meyers' Holiday. In this romantic comedy, released in December 2006, Diaz plays Amanda, a City of Angels native who meets Briton Iris (Titanic star Kate Winslet) on an Internet website that encourages its users to take vacations by temporarily "swapping homes" with one another. Inevitably, Amanda falls for an Englishman (Jude Law) while Iris meets and falls for an American man (Jack Black).
Meanwhile, the actress signed on to voice Princess Fiona again for Dreamworks' tertiary installment of the Shrek franchise, Shrek the Third, which finds Prince Fiona and Shrek the Ogre married but not planning to inherit the throne. When King Harold (the voice of John Cleese) falls ill, Shrek, Puss in Boots, and Donkey foresee the need for a scion, and set out to find Fiona's rebellious cousin, Artie, the "rightful" heir to the kingdom. Pop idol Justin Timberlake, Diaz's longtime boyfriend and suitor, provided the voice for Artie.
Prior to her long-standing romantic relationship with Timberlake (a constant source of tabloid fodder and speculation), Diaz was alternately linked, offscreen, with actor Matt Dillon, actor Jared Leto (to whom she was engaged for a time), and video producer Carlos De La Torre. She has never married, and according to some sources, never has any intention of marrying. In August 2004, however, she caused an enormous media stir when she turned up alongside Timberlake at Disney's Magic Kingdom in Orlando -- wearing what appeared to be a massive gold band with a diamond on her left hand; the couple denied that it was an engagement ring. The very same situation recurred in January 2005, when Diaz (sporting the same jewelry) and Timberlake popped up at the Los Angeles restaurant Angelini Osteria. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
At 16, she began her career as a fashion model. Diaz signed with top modeling agency Elite Model Management. After graduating from high school, she went to work in Japan and met video director Carlos de la Torre. On her return to the U.S., she moved in with him and had a five-year relationship from the time she was 17 until she was about 21.[7] For the next few years, her modeling took her around the world, working for contracts with major companies. She modeled for designers such as Calvin Klein and Levi's. She was featured on the cover of the July 1990 issue of Seventeen magazine.
On July 7, 2007, Diaz participated at Live Earth in New York by introducing Bon Jovi and The Police. In 2007, People ranked her as the Best Dressed Female Celebrity. In August 2008, Forbes Magazine listed Diaz as the highest paid actress in Hollywood. She reportedly earned $50 million in the period of a year ending June 2008, for her roles in What Happens in Vegas and the Shrek films.[10][11][12]
She made an uncredited guest appearance on Saturday Night Live on February 14, 2009 with guest star Alec Baldwin on a skit called "The Cougars' Den".
In 1992 Diaz appeared in a soft-coreS&M video entitled "She's No Angel" shot by photographer John Rutter. In 2003 she won an injunction against Rutter preventing him from distributing the video or accompanying photographs, however in 2004 the video began being distributed online through a Russian website.[14][15]
When Diaz was asked if she can speak Spanish she said:
“
I go, 'God, you know, it all sounds so familiar. I know what you're saying, I really do. I just cannot respond to you back in Spanish. I can barely speak English properly.' I didn't grow up in a Cuban community. I grew up in Southern California on the beach, basically. And I'm third generation. I'm of Cuban descent.[16]
”
The actress was vocal in her support for Al Gore in 2000. Diaz went so far as sporting a t-shirt that read "I won't vote for a son of a Bush!" while making the publicity rounds for Charlie's Angels.[17]
Although she was quoted in a 1997 Time Magazine article saying she was germophobic,[18] Diaz specifically denied this on the June 26, 2009 edition of Real Time with Bill Maher, saying that a small comment she made 12 years earlier regarding public bathroom doorknobs was blown out of proportion.[19]
On April 15, 2008, her father, Emilio Diaz, died of pneumonia, aged 58.[20]
Relationships
Diaz dated former *NSYNC member Justin Timberlake, whom she met at the 2003 Kids' Choice Awards. In October 2004, Diaz and Timberlake were in an altercation with a tabloid photographer outside a hotel. When the photographer and another man tried to photograph them, the couple snatched the camera. Pictures of the incident appeared in Us Weekly. Representatives for the pair claimed that they were "ambushed" and acting out of self-defense.[21] The pair issued a joint statement on January 11, 2007, announcing they had broken up, following weeks of breakup rumors.[22]
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