Birth Name :Elizabeth Jane Hurley
Height : 5' 8" (1.73 m)
Mini Biography
Wanting to be a dancer, Elizabeth Hurley went to ballet boarding school at 12, but soon returned home. When it came time to go to college, Hurley won a scholarship to the London Studio Centre which taught courses for dance and theater.elizabeth hurley bedazzled young elizabeth hurley elizabeth hurley austin powers elizabeth hurley wardrobe malfunction elizabeth hurley safety pin dress.
Soon, Hurley wore the punk rock look with pink hair and a nose ring, but to get work, she had to change her image to one that was castable. After college, Hurley worked in the theater and made her screen debut in Aria (1987). Roles in Television and a film, Remando al viento (1988), which included a young actor named Hugh Grant, soon followed.
European films followed her appearance in the BBC serial Christabel (1988) (TV). Her film debut in a Hollywood movie was in the Wesley Snipes action drama Passenger 57 (1992).
When Hugh Grant was picked up with Divine Brown, Hurley became headline news.
Added to this was the fact that she was the model representing top cosmetics house Estée Lauder, and there was nowhere Hurley could go to get away from the press.
In 1994, Hurley and Hugh Grant set up Simian Films in partnership with Castle Rock Entertainment. As Head of Development, Hurley found the script and produced her first film Extreme Measures (1996), which stars Hugh Grant.
Being declared one of the sexiest women in film history by Empire magazine would be a title which many actresses would find difficult to live up to, but Elizabeth Hurley was unlike most of the models-turned-movie stars that preceded her.
Not only blessed with high cheek bones and a curvy physique, she was also blessed with a sharp business sense, innate intelligence, as well as an almost supernatural ability to remain poised in the face of ugly controversies.
These scandals would come fast in furious, including the infamous arrest of her then-boyfriend, actor Hugh Grant, for soliciting a prostitute, followed a few years later with an ugly paternity suit against millionaire Stephen Bing over the birth of their child in 2001.
Despite these high profile setbacks, Hurley remained a popular model with her years-long contract with Estee Lauder, as well as maintained a modest career as an actress and producer, most notably starring as Vanessa Kensington, the knockout agent paired with Mike Meyers in "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" (1997).
Born June 10, 1965, in Hampshire, England, Hurley was one of three children born to her parents, a British Army major and a schoolteacher. She was fascinated by dance at an early age, attending a private boarding school that specialized in ballet at the age of 12.
As they often do with children, her girlhood dreams fell away soon afterwards after Hurley began finding more excitement with the New Age Travellers, a UK hippie group, and later, in the burgeoning punk movement, whose fashion sense she adopted with glee.
Hurley's first brush with modeling success came in the late eighties when she won a "Face of the Year" competition sponsored by a local newspaper. The prize was a year-long contract with a top agency in London, providing Hurley with an opportunity to make the rounds in print modeling.
She also made her film debut in 1987 with "Aria," an anthology film in which famous directors created short scenarios based on classical and operatic music pieces.
Her segment, inspired by "Die tote Stadt," was directed by Bruce Beresford. She followed this with roles in several popular English television productions, most notably "Christabel" (1988), with a script by Dennis Potter. She also appeared in a number of Continental productions, including a Spanish drama called "Remando al viento" (1988), which was top-billed by her future boyfriend, Hugh Grant.
Despite her popularity as a print model, Hurley had a difficult time making the transition to full-time actress. Even a turn as a villainous terrorist in the Wesley Snipes action picture "Passenger 57" (1992) failed to elevate her beyond the "occasional actress" standard.
What did push her to "It Girl" status was not a film role or a model layout, but a dress - specifically, a slinky black number by Versace that was held together by gold safety pins and gravity - that she wore to the premiere of Grant's film "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994). The image of Hurley in "that dress," as it was referred to in the media, was reproduced around the world, and made her an overnight hot commodity.
The legendary cosmetics firm Estee Lauder certainly thought so, signing her to become their spokesmodel in 1995. Hurley's face graced more pages and billboards than ever before, and her perfume line, "Pleasures," was a best seller. She also became involved with the company's breast cancer charity, citing her grandmother's death from the disease as the impetus for her involvement. Lauder's faith in their official face never faltered. In 2007, the company not only renewed the then 41-year-old Hurley's contract, but also extended it for several more years.
But success as an actress continued to dog Hurley; she appeared in several television productions, most notably "Sharpe's Enemy" (1994), which was part of the immensely popular historical drama series based on the novels of Bernard Cornwell.
She also played the Biblical temptress Delilah in the TNT movie "Samson and Delilah" (1996). But again, it was a media event that brought her to the forefront of the news - this time, the arrest of her then-boyfriend Hugh Grant for solicitation in Los Angeles.
Writers, pundits, and the public at larger were baffled by her decision to remain with Grant after the incident, even after his celebrated and humorous mea culpa on "The Tonight Show" almost immediately after the arrest.
In fact, the pair's relationship grew stronger in the coming years - presumably, because Grant knew how close he had come to losing a good thing over his careless tryst with Divine Brown (whom herself enjoyed a certain notoriety as the Hollywood hooker he picked up).
The reunited couple formed a production company, Simian Films, in 1996, which yielded two starring vehicles for Grant - "Extreme Measures" (1996) and "Mickey Blue Eyes" (1999) - and one for Hurley, "Method" (2004), in which she played a serial killer.