Eva Mendes
Biography
Eva Mendes was born March 5, 1974, in Miami, Florida, to Cuban-American parents and was raised in Los Angeles by her mother after her parents' divorce; Mendes has said that her mother "suffered so much to make my life OK" during her early years. Her father was a car salesman and her mother, also named Eva, is now an elementary school principal. She is the youngest of four children (she has two sisters and a brother). She was raised Roman Catholic and aspired to be a nun. As a child, Mendes was teased about her "buck teeth". A particularly observant Catholic, Eva was bitten by the acting bug while attending California State University Northridge. “Acting fell into my lap when a neighbor took pictures of me and showed them to an agent,” she recalls. “Then I found an acting coach and worked my butt off.”As a child she lived in Miami, Florida, and Los Angeles, California. She never saw herself as an actress while she was young and deigned to pursue other interests. She attended Hoover High School in Glendale and later attended California State University, Northridge to study Marketing, but dropped out after meeting boyfriend Zedrick Threatt, who helped her to seek an acting career. She studied with Ivana Chubbuck.
Eva Mendes’ first foray into showbiz came as a featured performer in music videos before she made her big-screen debut in 1998 in the schlocky horror film Children of the Corn V. “I was awful in Children,” she admits. “It was my first movie, and I hadn’t acted since being the fairy godmother in fourth grade. C5, as I call it, was a disaster.” Luckily, Eva Mendes learned from the experience, and she bounced back later that year with a memorable role in A Night at the Roxbury starring opposite Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan. “It was only my second job in the business,” she says, “and seeing them work and have fun made me decide that I could do it too.”
eva mendes stars in training day
Eva Mendes proved just that in 2001 when she was cast alongside Denzel Washington in the gritty thriller Training Day. The critically acclaimed film became a box-office smash, and Eva cashed in on the added attention with roles in 2 Fast 2 Furious, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Stuck on You, Out of Time, and Hitch, for which she received an ALMA Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture. Eva Mendes also broadened her footprint in the industry by joining fellow beauties Jessica Alba and Halle Berry as a spokesmodel for Revlon.
Personal Life
It was reported on January 31, 2008 Mendes has been in a rehab facility in Utah to battle a substance abuse problem for several weeks. Her representative told TMZ that she has been "working hard for the past year and made a positive decision to take some much-needed time off to proactively attend to some personal issues that, while not critical, she felt deserved some outside professional support. Out of respect for Eva's privacy, we do not wish to discuss further details.
Eva Mendes in the issue of Maxim magazine.
Eva Mendes (Actress) Maxim - March 2008 (3-2008) United Kingdom
Eva Mendes Latest Victim Of Cirque Lodge's Non-Miraculous Healing ...
Defamer.com, CA - Feb 26, 2008
