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| Jennifer Love Hewitt |
Early life
Jennifer Love Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas, and is the daughter of Patricia Mae (nue Shipp), a speech-language pathologist, and Herbert Daniel Hewitt, a medical technician. Hewitt grew up in Nolanville, Texas. Hewitt received her middle name after her mother promised her college friend (named "Love") that if she had a daughter, she would name her after her. Her older brother, Todd Hewitt, chose the name "Jennifer" as a homage to a crush he had at the time she was born. After the divorce of her parents, Hewitt and her brother were brought up by her mother.
As a young girl, Jennifer Love Hewitt was attracted to music, which led to her first encounters with the entertainment industry. At the age of three, she sang "The Greatest Love of All" at a livestock show. Just a year after that, at a restaurant-dance hall, she entertained an audience with her version of "Help Me Make It Through the Night". By the time she was five, Hewitt already had tap dancing and ballet in her portfolio. At nine, she became a member of the Texas Show Team (which also toured in the Soviet Union). At the age of ten, at the suggestion of talent scouts and after gaining the title of "Texas Our Little Miss Talent Winner", she moved to Los Angeles with her mother to pursue a career in both acting and singing. In Los Angeles, Hewitt attended Lincoln High School where her classmates included Jonathan Neville, who became a talent scout and recommended Jennifer Love Hewitt for her role in Party of Five.
Career
Acting
After moving to Los Angeles, Jennifer Love Hewitt appeared in more than twenty television commercials, including some for Mattel toys. Her first break came as a child actor on the Disney Channel variety show Kids Incorporated (1989-1991), where she was credited as "Love Hewitt". She later appeared in the live action video short Dance! Workout with Barbie (1992), released by Buena Vista.
She played Pierce Brosnan's daughter in a pilot for NBC called Running Wilde (1993), which featured Brosnan as a reporter for Auto World magazine whose stories cover his own wild auto adventures. However, the series was not picked up and the pilot never aired. Hewitt later had roles in several short-lived television series, such as Fox's Shaky Ground (1992-1993), ABC's The Byrds of Paradise (1994), and McKenna (1994-1995), and finally became a young star after landing the role of Sarah Reeves Merrin on the popular Fox show Party of Five (1995-1999). She assumed the role of Sarah after joining that show during its second season and continued it on the short-lived Party of Five spin-off, Time of Your Life (1999), which she also co-produced. The show was cancelled after half a season.
Hewitt's first feature film role was in the independent film Munchie (1992). A year later, she achieved her first starring film role in Little Miss Millions (1993). She appeared as a choir member in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993). Jennifer Love Hewitt became a film star after a lead role in the horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), which enjoyed great box office success ($125,000,000 USD). Hewitt and her co-stars gained popular exposure from the film. She appeared in the sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), which, though not as successful as the first film, took in more money on its opening weekend. She starred in the high-school comedy Can't Hardly Wait (1998).
Hewitt starred in The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000). That same year, she was the "most popular actress on television" due to her Q-rating (a measurement of a celebrity's popularity) of 37. Noting her "Q-rating", Nokia chose her to become its spokesperson.
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| Jennifer Love Hewitt |
Jennifer Love Hewitt starred in the television series Ghost Whisperer (2005-2010), which ran on CBS for five seasons before being canceled by the network in May, 2010. She reunited with her I Know What You Did Last Summer co-star, Freddie Prinze Jr., in Delgo (2008). The film was a massive box office bomb ($694,782 USD domestically). After a two-year absence from feature films, Hewitt led the independent drama Cafe (2010) with her then-boyfriend Jamie Kennedy. She starred in the Lifetime film The Client List (2010), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. The next year, Hewitt starred in the Hallmark Hall of Fame film The Lost Valentine (2011).
Hewitt will direct the film Wait Till Helen Comes (2012) based on the novel by Mary Downing Hahn. This will be Hewitt's feature film directorial debut (she previously directed three episodes of Ghost Whisperer). She is also set star alongside Ivan Sergei and Joel David Moore in the independent comedy Jewtopia (2012) and will star in the television series The Client List (2012).
Music
Hewitt was one of the back-up singers in Martika's number-one single, "Toy Soldiers" (1989). At the age of 12, Meldac funded the recording of Hewitt's first album, Love Songs (1992). The album was released exclusively in Japan, where Hewitt became a pop star. Her explanation for her success in Japan is that the Japanese "love perky music. The poppier the music, the better."
After she joined the cast of Party of Five, she signed to Atlantic Records, who rushed her second album, Let's Go Bang (1995), out in October. The album and its three singles failed to chart. Juggling her music career with her acting career, she recorded and released her follow-up album, Jennifer Love Hewitt (1996). The album, along with its four singles, failed to chart and Atlantic dropped Hewitt, who did not return to the music scene for three years.
She recorded the single "How Do I Deal" (1999) for the I Still Know What You Did Last Summer soundtrack. The song became Hewitt's first charting single, climbing to No. 59 on the Hot 100 and No. 36 on the Top 40 Mainstream. It reached No. 8 in Australia. Hewitt also recorded a cover of the Gloria Gaynor song "I Will Survive", which features briefly in the film.
She appeared in the LFO video for "Girl on TV" (1999), a song which was written for her by a member of the band. She also appeared in the music video for the Enrique Iglesias song, "Hero" (2001), as the singer's love interest.
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| Jennifer Love Hewitt |
Since 2004, Hewitt has remained inactive from the music industry, but the compilation album Cool with You: The Platinum Collection (2006) was released in Asia. Another compilation, Hey Everybody (2007), was released in Brazil. In 2009, reports surfaced that Hewitt was planning on making a country album and was in the process of writing material for it. Jamie Kennedy, Hewitt's boyfriend at the time, said: "I really want to make her a new demo for her music, because I think she should do singing again. She's so good." However, nothing has of yet come of the reports and Hewitt has remained absent from the music scene.
Writing
In November 2009, Hewitt made a foray into comic books. Veteran writer Scott Lobdell scripted the 5-issue anthology, Jennifer Love Hewitt's Music Box (2009-2010), based on Hewitt's ideas. The series has been published by IDW Publishing, and has been compiled in a trade paperback.
Hewitt wrote a book entitled The Day I Shot Cupid (2010), in which she speaks of her experiences with love and dating. During a January 2010 interview on Lopez Tonight, Hewitt said that there was a chapter in the book about "vajazzling" her "vajayjay" (decorating her vulva with Swarovski crystals). Jennifer Love Hewitt was attributed with popularizing the trend. The book became a New York Times Bestseller the week of its release. She announced via her Twitter page that she is currently penning a follow-up.
Filmography
1992 Munchie
1993 Little Miss Millions
1993 Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
1996 House Arrest
1997 Trojan War
1997 I Know What You Did Last Summer
1998 Can't Hardly Wait
1998 Telling You
1998 Zoomates
1998 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
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| Jennifer Love Hewitt |
2000 The Audrey Hepburn Story
2001 Heartbreakers
2002 The Hunchback of Notre Dame II
2002 The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina
2002 The Tuxedo
2002 Groove Squad
2004 If Only
2004 Garfield: The Movie
2004 A Christmas Carol
2005 Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber
2005 The Truth About Love
2006 Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
2007 Shortcut to Happiness
2008 Tropic Thunder
2008 Delgo
2009 The Magic 7
2009 Yes, Virginia
2010 Cafe
2010 The Client List
2011 The Lost Valentine
2012 Jewtopia
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